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d^t/.^  4la7y&  CtteYiA&riJ 


'Ikiwerjyfy *J  <Yya/</<jrr><& 


THE    BEASTS,    BIRDS,   AND 
BEES   OF   VIRGIL 


LONDON  AGENTS 
SIMPKIN,   MARSHALL  AND  CO.,   LTD. 


THE  BEASTS,  BIRDS, 
AND  BEES  OF  VIRGIL 

A  NATURALIST'S  HANDBOOK  TO 
THE  GEORGICS 


BY 

THOMAS  FLETCHER  ROYDS,  M.A.,  B.D. 

FORMERLY  ASSISTANT  MASTER   AT  WELLINGTON   COLLEGE 

AND   SCHOLAR   OF  WORCESTER    COLLEGE,   OXFORD 

AUTHOR  OF 

'THE   ECLOGUES   AND  GEORGICS  OF  VIRGIL  TRANSLATED  INTO   ENGLISH   VERSE 


WITH  A  PREFACE  BY 

W.  WARDE  FOWLER 


OXFORD 
B.  H.  BLACKWELL,  BROAD  STREET 

MCMXIV 


V  MORSE  STEP HEW* 


MAiAJ 


TO 

MY   FATHER, 

WHO    GAVE    ME    MY    FIRST    LESSONS 

IN    VIRGIL 

AND    IN    NATURAL    HISTORY 


512083 


Thou  that  singest  wheat  and  woodland, 

Tilth  and  vineyard,  hive  and  horse  and  herd  ; 

All  the  charm  of  all  the  Muses 
Often  flowering  in  a  lonely  word/ 

Tennyson  :  To  Virgil. 


PREFACE 

No  book  of  classical  antiquity  makes  quite  such 
a  strong  appeal  to  Englishmen  as  the  Georgics. 
For  the  average  educated  Englishman  has  in 
him  something  of  the  sportsman,  something  of 
the  naturalist,  and  often  at  the  back  of  his  mind 
an  inkling  of  the  poet ;  long  ago  he  had  also  in 
him  a  good  deal  of  the  farmer,  and  it  looks  as 
though  this  might  be  so  again  in  the  next 
generation.  The  Georgics,  if  he  has  the  luck 
to  come  across  them,  are  pretty  sure  to  attract 
him  in  one  way  or  another.  I  well  remember, 
in  the  days  of  my  college  tutorship,  having  to 
push  a  sporting  youth  through  the  thorny 
hedge  of  Responsions  —  one  who  was  totally 
incapable  of  understanding  the  rhetoric  of  Livy, 
with  whom  we  first  tried  him  ;  then  in  despair 
I  put  him  on  the  Georgics,  and  adroitly  began 
with   the   third.      When    he   came   to   Virgil's 

vii 


Preface 

description  of  the  horse's  points,  his  face  and 
his  mind  at  once  brightened;  to  use  his  own 
language,  he  'found,'  and  thereafter  took  all 
his  fences  without  a  fall. 

I  think  it  was  not  only  that  he  found  things 
in  the  poem  about  which  he  knew  a  good  deal 
— more,  in  fact,  than  I  did — but  that  he  uncon- 
sciously felt  the  life  of  the  animals  just  as  Virgil 
felt  them.  The  mere  fact  that  they  have  eyes 
and  ears  and  feet  and  tails,  and  do  certain 
things  with  them,  showing  the  active  mind 
within,  is  to  the  sportsman-naturalist  a  con- 
tinual delight,  and  so  I  think  it  was  to  Virgil. 
Every  animal  in  the  Georgics  is  full  of  life, 
constantly  in  action  for  some  definite  end. 
Open  them  anywhere^  and  you  find  at  once 
this  intensity  of  life,  sometimes  expressed  in 
a  single  wonderful  word.  The  reason  of  this 
is  that  the  poet  had  in  an  unusual  degree  the 
true  Italian  feeling  that  there  is  something 
mysterious  or  divine  in  all  life,  even  in  that 
of  plants — a  feeling  at  the  root  of  the  religion 
of  the  early  Italians,  though  less  recognizable 
among  those  of  to-day. 

It  is  because  Mr.  Royds  in  this  little  book 
viii 


Preface 

seems  to  me  to  give  us  substantial  help  in 
understanding  this  life  as  Virgil  and  the  old 
Italians  felt  it,  that  I  heartily  welcome  it,  hoping 
that  it  may  make  its  way  among  all  English- 
speaking  peoples,  and  lead  them  to  a  better 
knowledge  of  our  beloved  poet.  It  is,  I  think, 
the  best  commentary  we  have  for  the  naturalist, 
the  farmer,  or  the  sportsman.  I  have  learnt 
from  it  much  that  I  did  not  know  before,  and 
feel  that  I  may  confidently  recommend  it  to  all 
scholars. 

W.  WARDE  FOWLER 


IX 


INTRODUCTION 

The  ancient  naturalists  do  not  on  the  whole  add 
much  to  our  knowledge.  This  book  might  have  been 
considerably  enlarged  by  copying  all  the  passages 
from  Aristotle,  Varro,  Pliny,  and  Columella,  which 
the  industry  of  commentators  has  gathered;  but 
merely  to  show  how  far  these  agree  or  disagree  with 
Virgil,  or  have  copied  or  been  copied  by  him,  would, 
as  a  rule,  be  to  repeat  what  others  have  already  done. 
Varro's  importance  lies  mainly  in  the  fact  that  he  is 
earlier  than  Virgil  and  supplied  him  with  a  good 
deal  of  matter.  Pliny  has  an  unfortunate  habit  of 
describing  fact  and  fiction  with  impartial  accuracy. 
Columella  is  in  some  ways  the  best  expositor  of 
Virgil,  but  was  inclined  to  put  too  much  faith  in  him, 
as  appears  from  such  phrases  as  '  si  verissimo  vati 
velut  oraculo  crediderimus '  (i.  4),  or  'utamur  enim 
saepius  auctoritate  divini  carminis'  (vii.  3-9),  or  *ne 
decedamus  ab  optimo  vate'  (ii.  2).  Holdsworth 
regards  his  work  as  *  much  the  best  comment  on  the 
Georgics,'  but  admits  that  he  never  differs  from  him 
but  in  one  single  point. 

But  Aristotle  must  be  placed  in  a  different  category. 
Mr.  Warde  Fowler  calls  him  '  of  all  naturalists  down 
to  the  time  of  Willughby  and  Ray  the  most  exact 

xi 


Introduction 

and  trustworthy.'  Virgil  was  considerably  indebted 
to  his  Historia  Animalium,  the  ninth  book  of  which 
repays  careful  study. 

Quotations  from  these  writers  have  not  been 
entirely  excluded,  but  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
select  the  more  interesting  and  important  of  them,  and 
to  supply  a  few  which  have  not  appeared  elsewhere. 

Of  the  commentators  Keightley  is  the  only  one  who 
shows  a  general  knowledge  of  natural  history  and 
outdoor  life.  His  work  is  peculiarly  valuable  because 
he  resided  for  some  time  in  Italy.  But  he  wrote 
nearly  seventy  years  ago,  and  on  the  subject  of  bees 
he  is  almost  as  ill-informed  as  the  rest.  Holdsworth's 
book  is  occasionally  useful  for  the  same  reason  as 
Keightley's.  '  He  made  more  journeys  to  Italy  than 
perhaps  any  gentleman  in  this  age,  studied  Virgil's 
works,  in  particular,  on  the  very  spot  where  he  wrote 
them.'  But  he  was  not  a  naturalist,  and  he  died  in 
1746.  Martyn  was  a  Professor  of  Botany  at  Cam- 
bridge, but  knew  very  little  of  other  branches  of 
natural  history.  He  wrote  in  1740,  The  works 
of  these  three  commentators  are  now  out  of  print. 

Conington's  work  is  indispensable ;  but  neither  he 
nor  any  of  the  others,  except  occasionally  Page,  are 
of  much  value  for  our  purpose.  Moreover,  most  of 
them  have  studied  Virgil  from  a  too  exclusively 
English  standpoint.  Hence  Bible  naturalists  such 
as  Tristram  and  J.  G.  Wood,  though  they  make  no 
conscious  reference  to  Virgil,  often  throw  interesting 
sidelights  on  him  from  the  East. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Virgil's  science  made  no 
xii 


Introduction 

great  advance  on  that  of  his  predecessors.  If  Lucre- 
tius, for  instance,  had  written  a  Georgic  on  bees,  it 
would  doubtless  have  been  more  accurate  than 
Virgil's.  But  it  would  have  been  a  very  poor 
substitute  for  it.  Virgil  has  borrowed  freely  from 
older  writings,  possibly  including,  as  Sellar  thinks, 
the  lost  MeXiao-ovpyifcd  of  Nicander.  But  he  shows 
what  has  been  happily  termed  '  the  inspiration  of 
selection.'  He  not  merely  omits  a  good  many  of  their 
mistakes  and  includes  observations  of  his  own,  but 
he  is  never  tedious.  He  writes  with  the  religious 
feeling  of  the  true  poet,  and  with  that  'tender  affection 
for  the  whole  creation  of  God '  which  belongs  to  the 
true  naturalist.  In  the  words  of  Professor  J.  A. 
Thomson :  '  To  those  who  are  fortunate  enough  to 
have  in  any  measure  the  spirit  of  the  true  naturalist — 
as  we  see  it,  for  instance,  in  types  so  different  as 
Gilbert  White,  William  Macgillivray,  and  Charles 
Darwin — nothing  is  common  or  unclean.  They  have 
a  curiosity  that  is  catholic  in  its  tastes.' 

Mr.  Warde  Fowler  made  a  special  study  of  Virgil's 
birds,  '  partly  because  the  ability  to  read  and  under- 
stand him  is  to  me  one  of  the  things  which  make  life 
most  worth  living,  and  partly  because  I  know  that 
there  is  no  other  Latin  poet  who  felt  in  the  same 
degree  the  beauty  and  the  mystery  of  animals.' 
Virgil  is  at  his  best  in  those  idyllic  pictures  such 
as  the  conclusion  of  the  second  Georgic,  with  its 
denunciation  of  slaughtering  oxen  for  food  {Georg.  ii. 
537  5  cf-  Ovid,  Met.  xv.  72-142),  or  the  description  of 
the  dying  ox  in  the  third  Georgic  (iii.  515-530). 

xiii 


Introduction 

The  fourth  Georgic  is  farthest  of  all  from  the  truth 
as  science,  but  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  of  all.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  it  contains  many  mistakes,  for 
Virgil's  commentators  are  almost  as  much  in  the  dark 
as  he  was.  Evelyn  mentions  in  his  Diary  (July  13, 
1654)  that  he  acquired  a  transparent  apiary,  which 
he  kept  for  many  years  and  exhibited  to  the  King ; 
nevertheless,  observation  hives  and  scientific  api- 
culture are  quite  a  modern  institution. 

Virgil,  writes  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Digges,  '  put  forward 
in  verse  the  results  of  his  study  of  the  habits  of  bees, 
with  a  degree  of  accuracy  sufficient  to  excite  a 
wondering  admiration  on  the  part  of  twentieth- 
century  readers.  But  to  the  average  beekeeper  the 
hive,  until  comparatively  recent  times,  was  as  a  sealed 
book.  .  .  .  The  heroic  acts  and  incomparable  works 
were  wrought,  like  evil  deeds,  in  darkness :  and  man, 
loving  only  the  visible,  the  tangible,  sceptic  always  of 
the  unseen,  had  not  learned  that  within  the  secret 
places  of  the  hive  were  enshrined  mystery  upon 
mystery,  and  that  within  the  humming  insect,  flitting 
in  his  garden  from  flower  to  flower,  there  beat  a 
heart  brave  and  noble  enough  to  deserve  his  respect 
and  even  to  awaken  his  love.' 

Little  as  he  knew  about  the  inside  of  a  hive,  Virgil 
loved  his  bees,  and  through  them  most  of  all  saw 

1  Universal  Nature  moved  by  Universal  Mind.' 

Here  and  there  it  has  been  found  possible  to  vindi- 
cate him  against  his  critics,  and  a  good  deal  of 
commenting   on   commentators   and   copying    from 

xiv 


Introduction 

them  seemed  unavoidable.  A  large  number  of 
questions  must  be  left  open,  but  however  many 
errors  later  research  may  expose  in  the  Georgics,  their 
greatness  is  imperishable,  for  Virgil  was  a  great  poet, 
and  studied  Nature  less  as  a  critic  and  teacher  than  as 
a  reverent  and  prayerful  disciple.  Moreover  he  was, 
in  Tennyson's  well-known  words, 

1  Wielder  of  the  stateliest  measure 
Ever  moulded  by  the  lips  of  man.' 

It  remains  to  say  something  of  the  scope  and 
purpose  of  this  book.  Its  main  object  is,  firstly,  to 
discover  Virgil's  meaning,  and  secondly,  to  bring  it 
into  relation  with  modern  knowledge.  It  does  not 
pretend  to  be  a  complete  commentary  on  his  natural 
history.  But  his  zoology,  ornithology,  and  ento- 
mology are  almost  all  contained  in  the  Georgics. 
Pigeons  might  have  been  included  from  the  Eclogues, 
but  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  has  discussed  them  admirably 
in  his  book,  and  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  what  he 
has  said. 

Those  who  use  my  translation  with  this  book  will 
sometimes  find  that  they  disagree  with  one  another. 
The  translation  was  published  in  1907,  and  since  then 
I  have  seen  reason  to  revise  some  of  my  interpreta- 
tions. 

If  I  have  saved  some  future  commentator  from 
copying  the  worst  blunders  of  his  predecessors,  I 
shall  not  have  written  in  vain ;  but  in  the  hope  of 
appealing  to  a  wider  circle,  especially  fellow-bee- 
keepers and  the  higher  forms  at  public  schools,  I 
have  included  a  good  deal  of  matter  that  struck  me 

xv 


Introduction 

as  interesting,  though  not  always  strictly  relevant  to 
an  exposition  of  Virgil. 

Whatever  accuracy  I  have  attained  in  special 
knowledge  of  the  subjects  treated  is  largely  due  to 
the  kind  help  of  those  experts  to  whom  I  submitted 
doubtful  points.  In  particular  I  have  to  thank  Mr. 
Bertrand  Seeker,  veterinary  surgeon,  of  Malvern  Link, 
for  help  with  Part  I. ;  and  Police-Constable  Jesse 
Johnson,  bee  expert,  of  Haughton,  Staffordshire,  for 
supplying  me  with  the  most  up-to-date  literature  on 
bees.  In  Part  II.  my  greatest  debt  is  to  Mr.  Warde 
Fowler's  chapter  on  The  Birds  of  Virgil  in  his  book, 
A  Year  with  the  Birds.  Mr.  L.  E.  Upcott  of  Marl- 
borough has  read  my  work  in  manuscript,  and 
supplied  me  with  some  interesting  notes,  which  form 
Appendix  B.  I  am  glad  to  include  anything  from 
one  whom  I  remember  as  such  an  inspiring  teacher 
of  the  Georgics  in  my  school-days. 

I  ought  to  add  that  I  did  not  consult  Mr.  Warde 
Fowler  personally  until  after  this  book  wras  finished, 
so  that  I  must  take  full  responsibility  for  my  con- 
clusions, while  thanking  him  most  gratefully  for 
reading  the  proof-sheets,  and  for  his  great  kindness 
in  consenting  to  write  a  Preface.  There  is  no  one 
from  whom  I  would  more  gladly  have  accepted  this 
favour,  and  no  one  better  qualified  to  bestow  it. 

T.  F.  R. 

Bollingtox  Vicarage, 
Altrixcham, 

August,  1 9 13. 


XVI 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


COMMENTARIES. 

Conington  (1865),  revised  by  Nettleship  and  Haverfield  (1898). 

Heyne  (3rd  edition,  182 1). 

Keightley  (1847). 

Martyn  (5th  edition,  1827). 

Page. 

Papillon  and  Haigh. 

Sidgwick. 

Wagner  (1845). 

Holdsworth  :  Remarks  and  Dissertations  on  Virgil  (1768). 

Sellar  :  Roman  Poets  (Virgil). 

NATURAL  HISTORY. 

Bosworth  Smith  :  Bird  Life  and  Bird  Lore. 

Bowdler  Sharpe  :  British  Birds.  1 

Buffon  :  Natural  History  (1767). 

Cotton  :  My  Bee  Book. 

Cowan  :  The  Honey  Bee. 

Cowan  :  The  British  Bee- Keeper's  Guide  Book  (21st  edition, 

iTO)- 
Digges  :  The  Practical  Bee  Guide  (2nd  edition,  1910). 
Dresser  :  The  Birds  of  Europe. 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (new  edition). 
Harrison  :  The  Book  of  the  Honey  Bee. 
Lubbock  (Lord  Avebury)  :  Ants,  Bees,  and  Wasps. 
Maeterlinck  :  The  Life  of  the  Bee. 
Michelet  :  The  Insect. 

xvii 


Bibliography 


Newton  :  A  Dictionary  of  Birds. 

Thompson  :  Greek  Birds. 

Thomson,  A.  L.  :  Britain's  Birds  and  Their  Nests. 

Tickner  Edwardes  :  The  Lore  of  the  Honey  Bee. 

Tickner  Edwardes  :  The  Bee  Master  of  Warrilow. 

Tristram  :  The  Natural  History  of  the  Bible. 

Warde  Fowler  :  A  Year  with  the  Birds  (3rd  edition,  1889), 

chap.  vii. 
Webster  :  The  Bee-Keeper's  Handbook. 
Wood,  J.  G. :  Bible  Animals. 
Yarrell  :  British  Birds  (4th  edition,  revised  by  Newton  and 

Howard  Saunders). 


xvill 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 


PAGE 

I 


Birds 


PART  II 


34 


PART  III 


Bees 

Appendix  A 
Appendix  B 


57 
97 

IOI 


XIX 


THE   BEASTS,   BIRDS,   AND 
BEES   OF  VIRGIL 


PART    I 

BEASTS,  AND   INSECTS   OTHER   THAN   BEES 


Horses,  Cattle,  Sheep, 
Goats,  Dogs,  Swine,  etc. 
The  Gadfly. 


§  2.  The  Ant. 
§  3.  The  Cicada. 
§  4.  The  Mouse,  the  Mole,  and 
the  Weevil. 


§    I.    HORSES,    CATTLE,    ETC. 

Horses  and  cattle  form  the  central  interest  of  the 
third  Georgic,  the  first  300  lines  being  devoted 
almost  entirely  to  them.  After  a  conventional  pro- 
logue (1-39),  and  brief  invocation  of  the  hunting 
instinct  (40-45),  Virgil  settles  down  to  his  theme. 
His  horses  are  chargers  and  racers,  not  intended  for 
agricultural  work,  which  is  done  by  oxen ;  as  appears 
from  Georgic  i.,  and  is  implied  in  49-50  of  this  book. 
Hence  the  breed  of  cow  must  have  size  and  strength, 
rather  than  elegance  (51-52).  The  heavy  dewlap  is 
still  sought  by  breeders  as  an  indication  of  square 
and  strong  build  (53).  Length  of  body  is  desirable, 
that  the   cow  may  be    *  roomy '  for  her   calf  (54). 

B 


Beasts,  and   Insects  other  than  Bees 

Colour  is  simply  a  matter  of  taste  (56)  and  of  the 
particular  breed.  With  the  exception  of  the  hoof 
all  the  details  are  selected  from  Varro.1  Buffon 
follows  Virgil  in  recommending  that  the  ears  should 
be  large  and  hairy,  the  dewlap  long  and  reaching 
down  to  the  knees,  and  the  tail  touching  the  ground. 
He  adds  that  cows  may  also  be  used  for  ploughing. 

It  is  rare  now  in  England  to  see  farm  work  done 
by  oxen,  but  by  no  means  unknown.  Any  breed 
may  be  used,  and  will  gain  size  from  the  work.  The 
large  South  Devon  oxen  wrere  still  used  at  Poulton, 
a  farm  near  Marlborough,  fifteen  years  ago,  but  have 
now  disappeared.2  Both  sides  of  the  hoof  are  shod, 
and  in  any  case  a  large  hoof  is  an  advantage. 

Bulls  are  rarely  used  now,  but  *  taurus '  and  '  bos  ' 
are  interchangeable  in  Georgic  i.,  and  perhaps  not 
merely  for  metrical  reasons.  The  writer  has  seen 
two  bulls  yoked  together  in  a  cart  in  the  Grand 
Canary.3  They  are  even  ridden  occasionally.  A 
photograph  of  a  bull  carrying  his  owner  has  appeared 
in  Country  Life,  and  a  Staffordshire  farmer  now 
living4  remembers  one  which  was  said  to  have  carried 
a  farm  boy  to  hounds  for  two  miles.  Commentators 
who  make  *  taurus'  equivalent  to  'bos'  or  'iuvencus' 
are  therefore  not  entirely  justified. 

The  rules  for  breeding  (60-62)  are  very  safe  for  the 
cow,  and  Virgil's  practice  is  much  better  than  that 

1  R.  R.,  ii.  5,  7-8  2  Appendix  A,  §  1. 

3  Cf.  J.  G.  Wood,  Bible  Animals,  p.  109.  In  Palestine  a  pair 
of  bulls  may  constantly  be  seen  attached  to  the  same  yoke. 

4  Mr.  Joseph  Bettelley  of  Haughton. 

2 


Georgic  iii.    i — 87 

of  beginning  to  use  them  at  fifteen  months,  as  is 
frequently  done.  Two  years,  however,  are  not  too 
young  an  age,  and  the  cow  herself  will  decide  when 
she  is  unable  to  breed  any  longer  from  age.  Bulls 
should  be  young  (63-64).  Unless  valuable  for  show 
purposes  they  are  usually  converted  into  beef  after 
four  years.  Older  bulls  are  apt  to  grow  too  heavy, 
and  have  even  been  known  to  break  a  cow's  thighs. 

The  touch  of  pessimism  in  66-68,  is  not  specially 
relevant,  but  very  characteristic  of  Virgil  {cf.  i.  198). 
Dr.  Johnson  used  to  recite  it  with  infinite  pathos. 

The  description  of  a  well-bred  horse  (75-88)  is 
very  good.  '  Mollia  crura  reponit '  suggests  the  walk 
of  a  thoroughbred.  Ennius  applies  it  to  cranes, 
and  it  may  be  observed  in  the  common  moorhen. 
The  foot  is  well  picked  up  and  the  movements  light 
and  springy.1  Courage  is  essential  for  racing,  hunting, 
or  war  (77-79).     Cf.  182-184. 

The  head  should  be  well  carried  and  need  no 
bearing -rein  (79),  fine  and  tapering — 'thin  and 
meagre '  (Buffon) — '  a  head  like  a  snake  '  (Whyte 
Melville)  (80)  ;  but  it  should  be  broad  between  the 
eyes,  for  brains  are  wanted.  The  short  barrel  and 
muscular  back  and  chest  suggest  a  weight-carrying 
hunter.  The  '  duplex  spina '  (87)  is  another  point 
of  the  same  kind.  It  means  a  backbone  sunk  between 
two  ridges  of  flesh,  owing  to  the  development  of  the 
longissimus  dor  si  muscle  ;  and  may  be  observed  in  all 

1  Xenophon  (De  Re  Eq.  i.  6)  uses  vypos  in  this  sense  :  rd  ye 

prjv  yovara  fjv  (Badi£a>v  6  ncoXos  vypcos  kciixttttj,  k.t.X.     Cf.  Appen- 

dix  B,  §  i. 

3 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

horses  of  powerful  build.  A  sound  hoof  (88)  was 
very  necessary  to  an  unshod  horse.1 

The  parenthesis  on  colour  cannot  be  endorsed. 
1  A  good  horse  cannot  be  of  a  bad  colour.'  '  Spadices  ' 
are  bay,  Xenophon's  favourite  colour.  *  Glauci ' 
are  either  grey  or  blue  roan.  '  Gilvus '  is  probably 
dun,  but  may  be  chestnut.  Horses  are  rarely  born 
white,  and  perhaps  Virgil's  dislike  for  these  is  due 
to  this  fact.  But  a  white  foal,  '  Snowdrop,1  whose 
portrait  appeared  in  The  Field,  of  February  17,  1912, 
took  a  prize  at  Dublin  in  1911 ;  and  many  good 
hunters  are  white.  Dun  is  the  usual  colour  of  the 
Devonshire  pack-horse,  an  excellent  weight  carrier. 
Many  good  thoroughbreds,  including  Eclipse,  have 
been  chestnuts,  but  a  pale  chestnut  is  not,  as  a  rule, 
a  good  horse.  Golden  chestnut  is  an  Arab  colour, 
and  very  beautiful  when  the  sun  shines  on  it. 

It  is  curious  that  in  A  en.,  xii.  84,  Virgil  praises 
white  horses,  but  these,  like  the  Homeric  horses  in 
Iliad,  x.  437,  are  semi-mythical. 

There  are  many  famous  parallels  to  Virgil's 
passage  on  the  horse.  First  among  them,  and  finest 
of  all,  is  Job  xxxix.  19-25,  which  should  be  read  in 
the  Revised  Version,  with  the  margin  in  verse  24. 
Shakespeare  has  a  well-known  description  in  Venus 
and  Adonis.  It  is  remarkable  that  neither  Virgil  nor 
he  mention  the  importance  of  a  well-laid  shoulder, 

1  Cf.  Xen.,  De  Re  Eq.  i.  3,  axnrep  yap  Kvp.$a\ov  yjfo<pel  7rpos 
ru  banebcp  t)  kolXtj  onXr)  (cf.  iv.  3)  ;  cf.  Isa.  v.  28,  '  hoofs  like  flint/ 
and  Homer's  Kparepawx^s  tirtrot ;  Mic.  iv.  13,  '  I  will  make  thy 
hoofs  brass.' 

4 


Georgic  iii.    I — 87 

so  essential  in  the  eyes  of  modern  judges.  For 
a  short  portrait  Whyte  Melville's  would  be  hard  to 
excel,  though  the  '  snake '  is  questionable  : 

*  A  head  like  a  snake,  and  a  skin  like  a  mouse ; 

An  eye  like  a  woman's,  bright,  gentle,  and  brown, 
With  loins  and  a  back  that  would  carry  a  house, 
And  quarters  to  lift  him  smack  over  a  town.' 

Layard's  New  Discoveries1  has  an  interesting  pas- 
sage :  '  Although  docile  as  a  lamb,  and  requiring  no 
other  guide  than  the  halter,  when  the  Arab  mare 
hears  the  war-cry  of  the  tribe,  and  sees  the  quivering 
spear  of  her  rider,  her  eyes  glitter  with  fire,  her 
blood-red  nostrils  open  wide,  her  neck  is  nobly 
arched,  and  her  tail  and  mane  are  raised  and  spread 
out  to  the  wind.  The  Bedouin  proverb  says  that 
a  high-bred  mare,  when  at  full  speed,  should  hide 
her  rider  between  her  neck  and  her  tail.' 

The  '  collectum  ignem '  (85)  may  be  partly  a 
reminiscence  of  fire-breathing  dragons,  like  that  of 
Job's  crocodile  ;2  cf.  Georg.,  ii.  140,  and  Lucr.,  v.  29, 
where  the  same  phrase  occurs  ('  spirantes  naribus 
ignem  ').  But  the  red,  dilated  nostril  of  the  excited 
or  '  blowing '  horse  is  a  sufficient  explanation  : 

1  His  nostrils  drink  the  air,  and  forth  again, 
As  from  a  furnace,  vapours  doth  he  send.' 

Venus  and  Adonis. 

Cf.  Aeschylus,  Septem,  393-394,  and  Byron,  Destruc- 
tion of  Sennacherib,  '  And  there  lay  the  steed,'  etc. 

1  P.  330.  2  Job  xli.  19-21. 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

Kingsley  knew  how  to  depict  the  excitement  of 
a  hunter  in  his  Prose  Idylls.  The  same  essay,  My 
Winter  Garden,  contains  a  portrait  of  a  foxhound 
which  will  stand  comparison  with  either  Virgil  or 
Job. 

The  '  densa  iuba1  (86),  denoting  the  thick  crest 
of  the  stallion,  was  used,  according  to  Conington's 
note,  for  mounting  on  the  right  side  of  the  horse.1 
Manes  are  still  worn  on  the  off-side  of  the  neck,  but 
this  is  no  obstacle  to  their  being  used  for  mounting, 
to  assist  the  left  hand.  A  hogged  mane  is  no  longer 
considered  an  eyesore  in  the  hunting-field,  but  there 
was  a  time  when  hunting  men  were  ashamed  to  be 
seen  with  a  maneless  horse. 

1  Hinnitu  acuto '  (94)  is  characteristic  of  the 
stallion's  neigh,  which  is  shrill,  like  the  bellowing 
of  a  bull,  as  contrasted  with  the  voice  of  the  ox  or 
cow.2 

With  regard  to  the  limit  of  age  for  stud  pur- 
poses (95-100),  stallions,  unlike  bulls,  are  frequently 
used  at  twenty  years  and  over.  Being  gentler  and 
slower  in  their  movements,  their  weight  is  not 
dangerous.  Moreover,  they  are  of  little  value  when 
killed.  But  they  must  be  perfectly  sound,  and,  in 
any  case,  young  horses  are  preferable. 

The  caution  in  100-102  is  perhaps  intended  to 
balance  the  details  of  the  earlier  description. 
*  Points1  are  not  everything.  Horses  *  go  in  all 
shapes/  as  in  all  colours.     The  main  desideratum 

1  Appendix  B,  §  2. 

2  Cf.  White's  Selbome.    Letter  XXXII. ,  to  Barrington. 

6 


Georgic  iii.   87 — 112 

is  symmetry.  Action  is  the  best  test  of  shape,  but 
neither  is  infallible.  Thomas  Assheton  Smith  had 
a  celebrated  hunter,1  which  was  so  bad  a  hack  that  he 
was  always  led  to  covert.  To  take  an  instance  from 
the  kennel :  '  Squire '  Osbaldeston^  great  stud-hound, 
Furrier,  was  drafted  from  Belvoir  for  crooked  fore- 
legs. '  Prolemque  parentum '  (101)  is  very  important. 
It  is  an  old  saying  and  a  good  one  that,  ceteris 
paribus,  '  blood  will  tell/  Many  men  will  ride  none 
but  thoroughbred  hunters.  Speed,  courage,  and 
stamina,  all  depend  largely  on  blood.  (Attempts 
are  now  being  made,  on  Mendelian  principles,  to 
produce  a  distinct  type  of  thoroughbred  hunter.) 

The  chariot-race  which  follows  (103-112)  is  partly 
an  imitation  of  Homer,  but  Virgil  need  not  fear 
comparison  with  his  original.  He  is  evidently  a 
lover  of  the  sport.  It  is  remarkable  that  both  the 
first  and  the  second  Georgics  end  with  an  allusion 
to  it.  It  occurs  in  the  prelude  to  this  book  (18), 
and  again  in  180  and  202.  In  i.  59  mares  are  pre- 
ferred to  horses.  Keightley  says  they  are  fleeter,  but 
this  is  not  true.  Mares  certainly  have  more  stamina 
and  more  intelligence  then  the  average  gelding ;  but 
as  the  ancients  did  not  castrate,  we  must  suppose 
that  mares  were  preferred  to  stallions  for  the  same 
reason  that  they  are  now. 

Even    in    Buffon's   time,    if  we   may   trust   him, 

castration  was  unknown  in  Persia,  Arabia,  and  many 

Eastern    countries.      It  is  hardly  ever  used  in  the 

East  to-day  for  horses  and  donkeys.     The  man  who 

1  Named  Ayston.     He  was  '  pigeon-toed.' 

7 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

'quattuor  ausus  iungere  equos '  (113)  would  be  bold 
indeed  if  they  were  all  stallions.1 

In  115-117  we  have  the  training-ring,  in  which  it 
is  still  usual  to  'ring,'  'lunge'  or  'longe,1  a  young 
horse.2  But  '  impositi  dorso'  and  '  equitem'  suggest 
that,  as  Page  thinks,  the  reference  is  to  military 
training.  Soldiers  learning  to  ride  may  be  seen 
following  one  another  round  in  a  ring.  But  here 
the  training  of  the  horse  is  obviously  the  chief  con- 
sideration, and  Keightley  says  the  ancients  rode  their 
horses  round  where  we  should  simply  lunge  them  at 
the  end  of  a  rope. 

'  Gressus  glomerare  superbos  '  may  be  either  grace- 
ful cantering,  or  high  action,3  as  seen  in  those 
modern  trotters  which  are  '  superbi '  rather  than 
'  cursibus  acres.'4  Action  is  chiefly  inbred,  but  it 
used  to  be  improved  by  placing  logs  in  the  ring,  and 
the  Americans  have  a  system  of  weighting  the  feet.5 
Show  hackneys  are  often  heavily  shod  to  make  them 
pick  up  their  feet  higher.  The  same  kind  of  training 
is  alluded  to  in  191-2.  It  suggests  the  French 
manege  and  haute  ecole  style  of  riding. 

1  Aristotle  deals  with  castration  at  the  end  of  book  ix.,  but 
does  not  mention  horses.  Varro  mentions  that  of  sheep  and 
pigs  and  fowls  (ii.  2,  18,  and  4,  21,  and  iii.  9,  3). 

2  Appendix  B,  §  3. 

3  J.  G.  Wood,  Bible  Animals,  p.  263.  '  High  action  seems 
to  have  been  even  more  valued  among  the  ancients  than  by 
ourselves,  and  some  of  the  sculptures  show  the  horses  with 
their  knees  almost  touching  their  noses.' 

4  Appendix  B,  §  4. 

5  Weighting  the  feet  is  mostly  done  in  trotting  races  to 
prevent  '  breaking.' 


Georgic  iii.    1 13 — 151 

The  advice  given  in  123-137  is  good  in  the  case 
of  any  animal.  The  male  should  be  fed  high  to 
strengthen  him  for  his  task,  and  the  female  not 
allowed  to  grow  fat,  else  she  is  liable  not  to  '  hold.' 

'  Ipsa  armenta '  (129)  is  generally  understood  of  the 
brood-mares.  La  Cerda,  quoted  by  Martyn,  refers 
the  whole  passage  to  bulls  and  cows  only. 

'Armenta'  is  parallel  to  '  pecori '  (125),  and  prob- 
ably Virgil  has  both  mares  and  cows  in  mind,  as 
Martyn  and  Keightley  think.  He  is  here  beginning 
to  make  a  transition  from  horses  to  cattle  again. 

Threshing-time  (133)  is  very  late  for  putting  the 
mare  to  the  horse,  even  if  it  was  as  early  as  July. 
On  the  other  hand,  line  132  does  not  suit  the  cows  ; 
but  Keightley  suggests  that  '  sole  fatigant '  may  refer 
to  the  cows  for  threshing  work.  The  whole  question 
is  very  fully  discussed  by  Martyn. 

Excellent  advice  is  given  again  in  138-145.  Mares 
in  foal  must  not  be  allowed  violent  exercise,  but  they 
may  do  light  farm  work  almost  up  to  within  a  day  of 
foaling.  '  Saltu  superare  viam  '  (141)  probably  does 
not  mean  to  leap  over  or  out  of  a  road,  but  simply  to 
gallop  along  it. 

The  description  of  the  asilus  (146- 151)  is  copied  by 
Kirby  and  Spence  in  their  work  on  insects.  It  is 
not  a  whit  exaggerated.  Martyn  gives  an  account 
from  Vallisnieri  of  the  terror  the  asilus  inspires 
among  cattle.  The  usual  Latin  name  is  tabanus,  and 
the  Greek  for  it  is  either  olarpos  or  fjuvw-^r.  Aristotle 
distinguishes  these.    There  are  several  species  known 

9 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

in  England,  and  Virgil's  is  probably  the  Tab  anus 
bovinus,1  or  Great  Gadfly.  There  are  also  the  Oestrus 
bovis  and  the  Oestrus  ovis,  and  the  Gastrophilus  equi, 
horse-fly  or  bot-fly.  J.  G.  Wood,  in  his  Insects  at 
Home,  describes  how  the  Tabanus  bovinus  attacked 
him  in  the  New  Forest,  piercing  a  stout  tweed  coat 
and  flannel  shirt  till  the  blood  streamed  down  him. 
The  mere  buzz  of  one  of  these  insects  is  enough  to 
send  a  cow  scampering  about  in  terror,  tail  in  air : 

'  The  breese  upon  her,  like  a  cow  in  June, 
Hoists  sail  and  flies.' 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  iii.  8. 

'  The  herd  hath  more  annoyance  by  the  breese 
Than  by  the  tiger.' 

Troilus  and  Crcssida,  i.  3. 

The  gadfly  is  frequently  used  in  simile  and  meta- 
phor by  classical  authors — e.g.,  of  the  suitors  in 
Odyssey  22.  229,  and  in  Aeschylus,  Supp.,  307,  where 
both  names  occur — 

'  j3ot]XdTr/v  fxva>7ra  KLvrjrrjpiov. 
olorpov  naXovaiv  avrbv  01  NetXou  niXas.' 

Cattle  may  be  protected  from  it  by  preventive 
dressing.  J.  G.  Wood  discovered  that  paraffin  oil 
kept  it  entirely  away. 

Branding  (158),  also  mentioned  in  i.  263,  is  not 
usual  now,  except  on  large  cattle-ranches  such  as 
those  of  the  Argentine  Republic.  But  an  incon- 
spicuous mark  is  sometimes  made  in  the  ear,  es- 

1  Now  called  in  Italy  'Tavano'  (Holdsworth).  Tabanus  is 
properly  a  '  breese-fly,'  and  Oestrus  a  '  warble-fly.' 

10 


Georgic  iii.    158 — 190 

pecially  of  valuable  pedigree  stock.     It  is  regularly 
used  on  desert-bred  Arabs  and  camels. 

'  Cetera  armenta  '  (162)  includes  all  who  are  not 
the  '  quos  '  of  the  following  line.  These  latter  must 
be  taken  in  hand  early,  like  the  colt  of  187-9.  Calves 
are  apt  to  be  wild  unless  handled  early ;  especially 
if  allowed  to  run  with  the  cow,  as  Virgil  advises 
in  179.  This  is  done  in  Herefordshire,  and  is  best 
for  early  fattening  and  show  purposes,  but  is  more 
expensive.  '  Frumenta  sata '  must  mean  corn  in 
the  blade,  as  Blackmore  and  Dryden  translate  it. 
(Rhoades  understands  it  of  plucking  ears  of  corn 
by  hand.  Mackail  takes  '  manu  '  with  '  sata  ' — '  the 
corn  sown  by  thine  hand.')  It  is  true  that  growing 
corn  is  not  now  given  to  calves,  but  the  custom 
of  allowing  sheep  to  eat  off  the  first  growth  is  by  no 
means  obsolete.  It  is  a  good  plan  in  a  forward  spring. 
Virgil  himself  recommends  it  in  Georg.  i.  112. 

The  training  of  chargers  and  racers  is  taken  up 
again  in  179  et  seq.  Horses  are  naturally  timid,  being 
accustomed  to  trust  to  speed  rather  than  strength  for 
protection  in  their  wild  state.  But  if  their  training 
is  begun  early  and  accomplished  gradually,  they  may 
be  taught  to  face  almost  anything.  Weaning-time 
is  none  too  soon  to  begin  handling  a  colt  (187). 
The  use  of  the  halter  then  will  save  trouble  later. 

As  a  three-year-old  (190)  his  real  training  begins. 
'  We  rashly  run  two-year-olds,'  as  Page  remarks, 
1  but  the  chariot-race  would  be  a  severer  strain  than 
modern  racing.'  Even  now,  a  horse  is  considered  quite 
young  enough  for  general  purposes  at  four  years. 

n 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

1  Laboranti  similis '  (193)  suggests  disciplined 
strength,  the  free  action  of  an  eager  horse  restrained 
and  guided  by  the  trainer.  The  special  attention 
to  his  paces  may  have  some  reference  to  the  '  Belgica 
esseda '  of  204.  It  was  originally  the  war-chariot 
of  the  Belgae  and  Britons,  but  became  a  fashionable 
carriage  at  Rome  in  Caesar's  time. 

Buffon  observes  that  Neapolitan  horses  are  excellent 
for  carriages.  They  are  large-headed  and  thick  necked, 
but  stately,  spirited  and  graceful.  We  cannot,  how- 
ever, be  certain  whether  Virgil  is  referring  to  the 
'  essedum  '  as  a  private  carriage  or  as  a  war-chariot. 

The  '  farrago'  (205)  was  a  mixture  of  green  food, 
in  which  'far,'  or  'spelt'  predominated.  This  would 
be  very  wholesome,  for  high  feeding  must  not  be 
begun  suddenly.  A  sudden  change  from  grass  to 
corn,  especially  young  corn,  is  apt  to  cause  eruptions 
on  the  legs. 

From  203  and  208  it  appears  that  severe  bits  were 
in  vogue,  and  that  some  horses  were  resolute  enough 
to  pull  against  them.  A  confirmed  puller  is  some- 
times cured  now  with  a  plain  snaffle  softened  with 
an  indiarubber  covering.  Cruel  bits  are  seldom  used 
by  good  horsemen.1 

Rival  bulls  occupy  the  next  30  lines.  Fights  such 
as  Virgil  describes  would  be  frequent  enough  if  they 
were  made  possible.  Bulls  are  usually  best  kept 
solitary,  though  not  for  the  reasons  assigned  in  215 
et  seq.  In  some  parts  of  England  it  is  common 
enough  to  let  them  run  with  the  herd,  as  rams  are 

1  Appendix  B,  §  5. 
12 


Georgic  iii.    193 — 265 

allowed  to  do  with  sheep,  but  they  are  apt  to  become 
dangerous. 

In  230  most  editors  read  '  pernox,'  which  makes 
much  the  best  sense,  Conington  preferred  it,  but 
Nettleship  and  Haverfield  have  altered  it  to  6  pernix ' 
in  deference  to  superior  manuscript  authority.  The 
fodder  of  line  231  would  certainly  not  be  willingly 
chosen  by  the  bull.  Probably  Virgil  is  reflecting  the 
old  superstition  that  hard  fare  produces  hard  muscles. 

*  Irasci  in  cornua '  (232)  may  be  paralleled  from 
Eclogue  iii.  87,  as  well  as  traced  to  Bacchae  732, 
which  all  commentators  quote.  There  is  no  need 
to  seek  any  elaborate  explanation.  Bulls  may  often 
be  seen  shaking  their  heads  and  tossing  loose  earth 
with  their  horns.  The  *  pedibus '  of  Eclogue  iii.  87 
may  have  led  Keightley  to  translate  '  sparsa,'  etc.  by 
*  and  throws  up  the  sand  with  his  heels.'' 

'Ventosque  lacessit '  suggests  Dares  in  Aeneid  v. 
377 :  '  Verberat  ictibus  auras,'  or  St.  Paul  in  1  Cor- 
inthians ix.  26,  '  So  box  I,  not  as  one  that  beateth 
the  air.' 

242-4  introduce  a  long  passage,  of  which  the 
theme  is  'amor  omnibus  idem.'  It  is  well  known  that 
nearly  all  wild  male  animals  and  birds  become  bold 
and  pugnacious  in  the  breeding  season,  and  that 
females  with  young  will  face  almost  any  foe.  Stags 
in  the  rutting  season  (265)  are  a  well-chosen  instance 
of  the  former. 

The  '  aper '  of  248  has  by  some  commentators  been 
distinguished  from  the  '  Sabellicus  sus  '  of  255. 
Martyn  supports  them,  translating  :  '  even  the  Sabel- 

13 


Beasts,  and   Insects  other  than  Bees 

lian  boar ' — i.e.,  the  tame  pig.  But  the  context,  and 
the  epithet  *  Sabellicus,'  are  against  him.  Moreover, 
Aristotle's  description  of  the  fighting  boars,  referred 
to  by  Conington  and  Page,  agrees  with  Virgil;  and  his 
are  wild  boars.1  He  also  says  *  the  boar  rights  even 
with  the  wolf  (H.  A,  viii.  6),  which  is  probably  quite 
true.  The  wild  boar  of  India  is  known  to  sportsmen  as 
the  bravest  beast  on  earth.  A  recent  book2  contains 
the  following  description :  '  The  boar  is  never  afraid. 
.  .  .  Once  a  boar  has  determined  to  fight,  it  is  to  the 
death,  without  flinching.  ...  I  have  seen  him, 
with  two  spears  swaying  from  his  flanks,  charge  horse 
after  horse,  to  their  riders'  discomfiture,  until  he 
received  his  death-stroke — to  sink  without  a  sob.' 
The  *  Sabellicus  sus '  is  undoubtedly  the  wild  boar, 
and  no  finer  example  of  pugnacity  could  have  been 
chosen.  The  domestic,  acorn-eating  swine  of  the 
first  and  second  Georgics  (i.  400,  ii.  72  and  520) 
would  have  been  ridiculous  here. 

With  line  266  we  reach  the  climax  of  the  passage, 
which  has  been  partly  anticipated  in  250-254.  The 
belief  that  mares  could  conceive  by  the  wind  was 
universal  among  ancient  authors,  as  the  commen- 
tators show.  *  So  general  was  the  belief,"  says 
Keightley,  *  that  Lactantius 1  (iv.  2)  '  employs  it  as 
an  illustration  of  the  miraculous  conception  of  the 
Virgin  Mary.'  Virgil  shares  Aristotle's  caution  in 
not  mentioning  the  birth  of  foals  from  this  cause, 
but  '  gravidae1  really  implies  it. 

1  H.  A.  vi.  18,  1. 

2  Sir  E.  Durand,  Rifle,  Rod,  and  Spear  in  the  East. 

14 


Georgic  iii.   266 — 300 

The  *  hippomanes  is,  according  to  Virgil,  the  sign 
of  heat  in  the  mare.  Apparently  it  was  also  used  of 
two  other  things— a  plant  of  the  spurge  kind,  and 
a  supposed  tubercle  on  the  forehead  of  the  new-born 
foal.  Virgil  in  282-283  is  recalling  Aristotle,  who 
mentions  the  hippomanes  in  H.  A.  vi.  22,  and 
viii.  24,1  and  its  use  in  sorcery :  '  witches  seek  for  it 
and  collect  it.'  Murray's  English  Dictionary  quotes 
Tytler's  History  of  Scotland  (1864,  iv.  201)  to  the 
effect  that  poison  was  compounded  by  the  wizard  of 
adders'  skins,  toads1  skins,  and  the  hippomanes  in 
the  head  of  a  young  foal.  There  is  a  piece  of  flesh 
resembling  liver  in  the  '  liquor  amnii '  which  en- 
velopes the  unborn  foal,  and  this  seems  to  be  the 
origin  of  the  hippomanes  superstition.  Some  grooms 
assert  that  if  dried  and  rubbed  on  the  hands  it  gives 
power  to  tame  the  most  savage  animals,  and  that 
mixed  with  a  drink  it  is  a  human  aphrodisiac. 

With  287  we  pass  to  sheep  and  goats.  Sheep  are 
to  be  nursed  in  winter  (296-298),  to  prevent  disease. 
Such  treatment  is  not  given  them  now,  except  in  the 
lambing-pens.  '  Scabiem  '  is  scab,  and  *  podagras 
probably  foot-rot,  both  still  common.  The  former  is 
dealt  with  at  greater  length  in  441  et  seq.  (Sandy 
soil,  dirt,  and  wet,  cause  foot-root.  No  germ  is  at 
present  known.) 

The  goat  (300)  is  evidently  a  favourite  with  Virgil, 

1  He  distinguishes  it  here  from  the  ireoXiov,  which  Liddell 
and  Scott  explain  as  the  membrane  round  the  unborn  foal. 
Virgil  appears  to  confuse  two  senses  of  hippomanes  in  281 
and  282. 

15 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

in  spite  of  his  strictures  in  Georgic  ii.1  There  is  a 
good  deal  to  be  said  in  his  support.  The  goat 
usually  breeds  once  a  year,  but  if  well  cared  for  will 
do  so  twice,  and  drop  two  or  three  at  a  birth — occa- 
sionally four.  She  will  give  up  to  two  quarts  of 
milk  a  day  after  kidding.  Three  are  on  record. 
Goats  are  quite  capable  of  '  roughing  it,1  but  do 
better  if  housed  in  winter. 

The  great  drawback  to  keeping  them  is  that  they 
will  ruin  every  fence  or  young  tree  within  reach  if 
not  tethered  (cf.  314-315  and  Georg.  ii.  196  and  380). 
*  A  goat  will  leave  the  finest  pasture  and  the  richest 
fodder  to  eat  the  twigs  of  the  thorniest  hedge  or 
to  gnaw  the  bark  of  a  tree.  Wherever  you  see  goats 
kept  on  good  enclosed  land — unless  they  are  always 
tethered — there  you  will  see  all  hedges  die,  and  a 
complete  absence  of  all  young  trees.'2  This  is  quite 
sufficient  to  explain  the  '  urentes '  of  ii.  196,  and  the 
'  venenum  '  of  ii.  378.  The  '  capreae  '  of  ii.  374  are 
roe-deer.3 

Tristram4  asserts  that  goats  have  actually  extir- 
pated many  species  of  trees  in  the  Holy  Land,  and 
1  after  the  ebony  forests  had  been  cut  down  in  the 
island  of  St.  Helena,  the  goats  completely  extirpated 
the  young  plants,  until  the  tree  had  become  utterly 
extinct.'  He  also  confirms  line  316  :  *  Fully  sensible 
of  the  danger  of  remaining  unprotected,  they  hurry 

1  Cf.  the  Eclogues,  passim.        2  Country  Life,  April  1,  191 1. 
3  'Tondent  dumeta'  (i.  15)  probably  means  'browse  in  the 
thickets.'     So  Sellar  translates  it. 
*  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  pp.  89,  92. 
16 


Georgic  iii.    300 — 394 

homewards  of  their  own  accord  as  soon  as  the  sun 
begins  to  decline.' 

'The  magnificent  winter-piece,'1  as  Churton  Collins 
called  it,  has  found  an  imitator  in  Thomson,  e.g.  : 

'  Drooping,  the  labourer-ox 
Stands  cover'd  o'er  with  snow,  and  then  demands 
The  fruit  of  all  his  toil.' 

(Cf.  368-370.) 

The    allusion    to    dogs    and    stag-hunting   will    be 
noticed  later  on.     Virgil  recurs  to  it  in  404-413. 

Sheep  and  goats  occupy  384-403  for  wool  and  milk 
respectively.  '  Aspera  silva  lappaeque  tribolique  ' 
(cf.  i.  152)  tear  the  wool,  and  even  the  flesh  (cf.  444). 
In  Genesis  xxii.  13,  a  ram  is  caught  in  a  thicket  by 
his  horns.  *  Pabula  laeta '  produce  more  fat  than 
wool.  Down-fed  sheep  produce  the  best  wool  in 
England. 

The  superstition  about  the  colour  of  the  ram's 
tongue — found  also  in  Aristotle,  Varro,  Columella, 
and  Pliny — has  a  curious  basis  in  fact.  The  story 
of  the  ring-straked,  speckled,  and  spotted  sheep  in 
Genesis  xxx.  is  by  no  means  incredible.  A  chestnut 
mare,  put  to  a  chestnut  horse  in  the  presence  of  a 
piebald  pony,  has  been  known  to  drop  a  piebald  foal, 
and  the  experiment  has  been  repeated  with  a  zebra  in 
place  of  the  pony.  '  Birth-marks  '  on  human  beings 
are  said  to  be  sometimes  due  to  some  pre-natal  sug- 
gestion in  the  mind  of  the  mother.  But  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  the  tongue  of  the  ram,  which  the  ewe 
would  not  see,  could  affect  the  fleece  of  his  progeny. 
1   Winter,  240. 

17  C 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than   Bees 

In  ii.  150  'bis  gravidae  pecudes '  must  include 
sheep.1  Sheep  in  England  are  not  allowed  to  breed 
twice  a  year.  Their  period  of  gestation  is  150  days, 
as  against  120  in  the  goat,  and  they  usually  have 
fewer  at  a  birth.  Hence  '  densior  hinc  suboles '  of 
the  goat  in  308. 

It  is  remarkable  that  milk  (394)  is  treated  solely 
with  reference  to  goats.2  That  of  the  cows  was 
apparently  to  be  devoted  entirely  to  the  calves 
{cf.  176-178).  '  Salsas  herbas '  probably  means  that 
salt  is  to  be  mixed  with  the  food,  as  is  frequently 
done  now.  It  is  a  preventive  of  liver-rot,3  or  fluke 
disease,  and  worms  in  sheep.  All  herbivorous  animals 
are  fond  of  salt,  as  hunters  are  well  aware.  Lying  in 
wait  at  a  '  salt-lick '  is  a  favourite  device  for  securing 
antelopes.  Buffon  says  that  both  vinegar  and  salt 
may  be  mixed  with  grass.  The  effect  on  the  flavour 
of  the  milk  is  not  noticeable  (397).  But  salt  creates 
thirst,  and  water  is  needed  for  the  production  of 
milk.  Keightley  is  wrong  in  saying  that  sheep, 
except  Southdowns,  never  drink  unless  diseased. 
They  drink  freely  after  lambing,  and  may  be  observed 
drinking  at  other  times,  especially  if  their  food  is 
dry.4     No  doubt   dew  will  take  the  place  of  water 

1  Cf.  Columella,  vii.  2. 

2  Sheep's  milk  is  also  peculiarly  rich,  and  esteemed  above 
that  of  cows  in  the  East.  There  may  be  an  allusion  to  it, 
by  contrast,  in  308. 

3  This  is  said  to  be  unknown  on  the  English  salt  marshes. 

4  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  141.  Tristram  says  :  '  In  the  East 
the  sheep  requires  water  daily  owing  to  the  heat  and  dryness 
of  the  climate.'     He  wrongly  adds  :  '  Whereas  in  England  it 

18 


Georgic  iii.   394 — 405 

to  some  extent  (326),  but  Virgil  also  mentions  water 
just  below  it  (330  and  335).  Aristotle1  says  drink- 
ing fattens  sheep,  and  advises  salt  to  make  them 
thirsty. 

The  '  capistrum '  (399),  or  iron-spiked  muzzle,  is 
still  sometimes  used  for  calves,  but  is  cruel  to  the 
cow.  A  plain  muzzle,  tight  enough  to  prevent 
sucking,  is  more  usual  now.  The  '  molle  capistrum  ' 
of  188  was,  according  to  Conington,  made  of  osiers. 

Goats'-milk  cheese  (403)  is  familiar  now  under  the 
name  of  '  Camembert.' 

Dogs  (404)  have  already  been  mentioned  in  44 
(Taygetique  canes)  and  345  and  371.2  *  Spartan ' 
is  evidently  the  stock  epithet  for  a  good  dog,  just 
as  bees  are  '  Hyblaean,'  quivers  '  Cretan,'  lions 
*  Carthaginian,'  and  tigers  '  Armenian.'  Molossians 
were,  according  to  Aristotle,3  remarkable  for  size 
and  courage,  and  therefore  valuable  to  protect  sheep 
from  wild  beasts.  Somervile  in  his  Preface  to  The 
Chace  translates  line  405  : 

'The  greyhound  swift  and  mastiff's  furious  breed.' 

1  Sero  pingui ?  is  usually  understood  to  be  whey, 
but  Somervile  thinks  it  is  buttermilk.  Dogs  like 
both.  A  pointer  in  Colonel  Peter  Hawker's  Diary 
so  distended  herself  with  the  latter  as  to  be  quite  unfit 
for  work.  According  to  Dioscorides  (ii.  80)  the  whey 
from  cheese  is  very  nourishing  for  dogs.     Columella 

never  drinks.'  References  to  watering  sheep  are  frequent  in 
the  Old  Testament  (cf.  Ps.  xxiii.  2). 

1  H.  A.,  viii.  10.  2  Appendix  B,  §  6.  3  H.  A.  ix.  1. 

19 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than   Bees 

(vii.  12)  prescribes  the  addition  of  barley -meal. 
Several  of  the  commentators  quote  Hesiod :  firj 
(bel&eo  (tltov  k.t.X.  Possibly  '  pingui '  implies  that 
barley  or  some  kind  of  meal  was  added  to  the 
whey,  which  is  not  fattening  by  itself.  Heyne 
refers  to  Nemesianus  and  Gratius  for  the  same 
precept.  It  is  well  known  that  dogs  will  thrive  on 
food  of  this  kind,  although  their  natural  diet  is 
flesh  and  bones. 

About  a  century  ago  Mr.  Hugo  Meynell  matched 
two  of  his  hounds  against  two  of  Mr.  Barry's  over 
a  four-mile  course.  Meynell's  were  trained  on  legs 
of  mutton,  and  Barry's  mainly  on  oatmeal.  The 
latter  won,  covering  the  course  in  eight  and  a 
quarter  minutes. 

Somervile    in   his   Preface   gives   a   very   spirited 

rendering  of  42-45 : 

1  Hark  away, 
Cast  far  behind  the  lingering  cares  of  life. 
Cithaeron  calls  aloud,  and  in  full  cry 
Thy  hounds,  Taygetus.     Epidaurus  trains 
For  us  the  gen'rous  steed  ;  the  hunter's  shouts, 
And  cheering  cries,  the  assenting  woods  return.' 

Shakespeare's  hounds  of  Theseus  are  magnificent 
{A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  iv.  1) : 

The.     *  We  will,  fair  queen,  up  to  the  mountain's  top, 
And  mark  the  musical  confusion 
Of  hounds,  and  echo  in  conjunction. 

Hipp.    I  was  with  Hercules  and  Cadmus  once, 

When  in  a  wood  of  Crete  they  bay'd  the  bear 
With  hounds  of  Sparta  :  never  did  I  hear 
Such  gallant  chiding  ;  for,  besides  the  groves, 
20 


Georgic  iii.  405 — 413 

The  skies,  the  fountains,  every  region  near 

Seem'd  all  one  mutual  cry  :  I  never  heard 

So  musical  a  discord,  such  sweet  thunder. 

The.      My  hounds  are  bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind,'  etc. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Virgil  has  not  come 
near  this  passage.  Nor  has  Somervile  in  all  his 
four  books. 

The  five  lines  on  hunting  which  follow  (409-413) 
are  Virgil's  chief  allusion  to  the  subject.1  The 
winter-hunting  described  above  (371)  has  a  parallel  in 
Georgic  i.  308.  He  has  also  touched  on  the  subject 
in  i.  140,  and  in  the  rousing  appeal  of  horse  and 
hound  in  44  of  this  book. 

From  these  and  sundry  passages  in  the  Aeneid  it 
appears  that  Virgil  was  a  sportsman  at  heart.  From 
the  humanitarian  point  of  view  this  is  a  serious  blot 
on  the  work  of  so  gentle  and  religious  a  poet.  But, 
in  spite  of  all  that  humanitarians  may  say,  there  have 
never  been  wanting  men  of  the  highest  character  who 
have  found  it  possible  to  combine  hunting,  shooting, 
or  fishing  with  a  genuine  love  of  the  quarry  and  its 
natural  history.  There  is  no  sign  that  Virgil  regarded 
hunting  merely  as  a  training  for  war,  or,  with  Pliny, 
merely  as  a  mental  relaxation.  But  it  must  be 
admitted  that  ancient  sport  was  not  of  a  high  order, 
and  much  resembled  the  methods  of  the  poacher. 

The  stag  was  driven  into  a  net,  with  the  aid  of  a 
■  formido '  or  cord  with  red  feathers  on  it.2  The 
hounds  were  only  used  as  the  '  tufters '  of  the  Devon 
and   Somerset,   and  the   deer-hounds   of  Scotland. 

1  Appendix  B,  §  7.  2  Appendix  B,  §  8. 

21 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

Prolonged  hunting  by  scent  was  not  practised.  The 
business  of  the  '  tufters '  is  simply  to  find  the  stag 
and  start  him.     Oppian  calls  them  Ixvevrrjpes. 

The  knife  (374)  is  still  used  when  the  stag  is 
brought  to  bay,  and  the  '  formido '  may  now  be 
seen  acting  the  part  of  a  deer-scare  in  Devonshire, 
where  the  deer  are  a  serious  nuisance  to  the  farmer. 

The  '  ingens  cervus '  (413)  was  probably  valued 
for  his  head  as  well  as  his  bulk  (cf.  Aeneid  vii.  483  for 
a  '  warrantable  '  stag ;  and  Eclogue  vii.  30). 

The  wild  ass  (409)  is  apparently  mentioned  for 
literary  reasons.1  It  has  never  been  a  native  of 
Europe,  but  is  a  favourite  quarry  of  Arab  hunters, 
and  is  mentioned  in  Job  xxxix.  as  a  type  of  speed 
and  wildness.  Swine  are  proverbially  fond  of 
wallowing  (411)  (cf.  2  Peter  ii.  22).  Varro2  describes 
it  as  '  illorum  requies,  ut  lavatio  hominis.'  It  is 
cooling  in  hot  weather,  and  keeps  the  flies  off. 
Buffaloes  also  love  it.3 

The  first  word  of  line  440  gives  the  heading  for 
the  remainder  of  the  book,  the  greater  part  of 
which  is  concerned  with  some  great  cattle-plague. 
The  special  remedies  prescribed  are  mostly  obsolete, 
and  the  '  causas ,  in  441-444  are  an  error,  as  might 
have  been  expected.  Scab  is  really  due  not  to 
cold  or  wet  (cf.  299)  or  wounds,  but  to  an  acarian 
parasite,  the  Dermatodectes  ovis.  Columella  repeats 
Virgil's  error,  and  no  commentator  seems  to  have 
exposed   it.     Scab  is  very  contagious,  but   can   be 

1  But  the  Romans  were  fond  of  its  flesh  (Pliny,  viii.  170). 

2  R.  R.  ii.  4.  3  Appendix  B,  §  9. 

22 


Georgic  iii.  413—455 

prevented  and  cured  by  sheep-dip,  the  use  of  which 
is  now  compulsory  in  England. 

Oil,1  sulphur,  tar,  and  hellebore  are  still  used, 
sulphur  and  hellebore  both  being  good  for  skin 
diseases.  Oil  is  used  in  mixtures;  and  in  Scotland 
it  serves  as  a  protective  against  cold  and  wet,  as 
also  in  Palestine. 

Scab  does  not  produce  an  ulcer,  and  ulcers  do  not 
need  lancing  (453).  But  'ulcus'  may  simply  mean 
a  sore  place,  and  it  is  possible  that  '  scabies '  is 
meant  to  include  skin  ailments  other  than  what 
is  technically  known  as  scab.  Mr.  Mackail  avoids 
committing  Virgil  to  either. 

The  Song  of  our  Syrian  Guest,  an  exposition  of 
Psalm  xxiii.,  contains  the  following  passages :  '  The 
psalm  closes  with  the  last  scene  of  the  day.  .  .  . 
The  shepherd  has  the  horn  filled  with  olive-oil,  and 
he  has  cedar-tar,  and  he  anoints  a  knee  bruised  on 
the  rocks,  or  a  side  scratched  by  thorns.  And  here 
comes  one  that  is  not  bruised,  but  is  simply  worn 
and  exhausted ;  he  bathes  its  face  and  head  with  the 
refreshing  olive  oil,  and  he  takes  the  large  two- 
handled  cup  and  dips  it  brimming  full  from  the 
vessel  of  water  provided  for  that  purpose,  and  he 
lets  the  weary  sheep  drink.  ...  "  He  anointeth  my 
head  with  oil,  my  cup  runneth  over."  ' 

1  Oil,  sulphur,  and  tar  are  used  for  camels  both  as  a  dressing 
and  as  a  medicine.  The  '  oil '  in  Ps.  xxiii.  5  is  probably  a 
reference  to  its  use  for  sheep.  According  to  Eastern  inter- 
preters, the  figure  of  the  shepherd  is  maintained  throughout 
the  psalm.  J.  G.  Wood  says  oil  is  applied  to  the  forehead 
after  shearing  and  lambing. 

23 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

Thus  oil,  tar,  and  water  all  have  their  use  for 
sheep. 

Sheep-washing  (445;  cf.  i.  272)  in  the  Georgics 
seems  to  be  entirely  for  health.  With  us  it  is  merely 
to  cleanse  the  wool  before  shearing. 

In  some  respects  it  appears  that  veterinary  science 
has  not  advanced  since  Virgil's  day.  He  may  well 
be  excused  for  vagueness  if  the  following  be  true: 
*  During  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years  new  forms  of 
disease  have  appeared.  A  flock  of  healthy  sheep  in 
a  week  or  ten  days  are  in  serious  trouble ;  many  die, 
and  the  remainder  recover  slowly  with  weakened 
systems.  Post  -  mortems  often  disclose  nothing. 
Sometimes  it  seems  infectious,  sometimes  not.  No 
cause  is  apparent,  and  no  preventive  measures  pos- 
sible. Shrewd  old  shepherds  are  baffled,  experi- 
enced flockmasters  are  beyond  their  depth,  and 
trained  pathologists  are  as  much  in  the  dark  as  the 
youngest  student.'  The  above  is  condensed  from  an 
article  in  Country  Life  of  March  30,  1912. 

Superstitious  inactivity  is  a  common  phenomenon 
in  the  face  of  any  mysterious  pestilence  (455-456). 
Lecky1  has  an  allusion  of  a  similar  kind  to  the  great 
English  cattle-plague  of  1865  :  '  When  a  deadly  and 
mysterious  disease  fell  on  the  cattle  of  England, 
some  divines,  not  content  with  treating  it  as  a 
judgment,  proceeded  to  trace  it  to  certain  popular 
writings,  containing  what  were  deemed  heterodox 
opinions  about  the  Pentateuch,  or  about  the  eternity 
of  punishment."'  Disbelief  in  natural  causation  is 
1  Hist.  Eur.  Morals,  i.  p.  356. 
24 


Georgic  iii.  455—471 

apt  to  lead  to  idle  fatalism,  or  prayer  unaccompanied 
by  effort,  as  Virgil  knew. 

The  '  venam '  of  460  is,  properly  speaking,  an 
artery,  and  the  translators  must  be  corrected.  Sheep 
are  bled  in  the  foot,  or  face,  or  ear ;  not  in  the  neck, 
owing  to  the  thickness  of  the  wool,  as  Keightley 
points  out.  Bleeding  used  to  be  common  for 
animals,  as  for  man,  but  is  rarely  used  now. 

The  '  signa ,  of  disease  (464-467)  show  that  Virgil 
was  a  good  observer  here.  Healthy  sheep  are 
close  biters,  as  Conington's  authority  informed  him. 
The  meaning  of  468  is  obviously  that  the  sheep  is 
to  be  killed.  Virgil  is  effecting  a  transition  from 
scab  to  the  '  multae  pecudum  pestes,'  which  he 
does  not  always  trouble  to  distinguish  from  one 
another  (471). 

The  account  of  the  great  plague  which  follows  is 
doubtless  influenced  to  some  extent  by  Lucretius, 
and  through  him  Thucydides.1  But  there  is  no 
reason  to  accuse  Virgil  of  merely  adapting  the  plague 
of  Athens  for  his  own  purpose.  He  undoubtedly 
has  some  historical  cattle-plague  in  his  mind;  and 
if  his  description  is  vague  and  inaccurate  here  and 
there,  at  least  the  delicacy  of  his  feeling  has  saved 
him  from  some  of  the  disgusting  realism  of  Lucre- 
tius, who  has  sacrificed  true  poetry  to  medical 
science. 

The  great  outbreak  of  rinderpest  in  1865  is  remem- 
bered by  many  people  now  living.     Virgil's  cattle- 
plague  was  evidently  something  of  the  same  kind. 
1  Lucr.,  vi.  1 138  to  end  ;  Thuc,  ii.  47-54. 
25 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

The  last  case  in  England  occurred  in  1877.  It  has 
existed  in  Egypt  since  1910,  having  come  through 
Uganda  and  the  Soudan  from  the  Transvaal. 

Martyn  gives  a  long  account  of  a  cattle-plague 
in  1714,  when  5,418  bulls  and  cows  were  lost  in 
Middlesex,  Essex,  and  Surrey.  But  Virgil  is  really 
including  all  diseases  of  all  animals  under  one  name. 
Rabies  in  dogs  (496),  and  lung  disease  in  pigs,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  cattle-plague.  Pigs  are  pecu- 
liarly subject  to  lung  diseases,1  and  pleuro-pneumonia 
used  to  be  a  great  scourge  among  cattle.  Horses 
(498)  are  not  affected  by  rinderpest,  but  foot-and- 
mouth  disease  sometimes  attacks  horses  and  sheep, 
as  well  as  cattle.  Coldness  of  the  ears  (501)  is  a 
well-known  bad  symptom  in  horses.2  The  drench- 
ing-horn  (509)  is  still  used  by  old-fashioned  prac- 
titioners, but  a  bottle  is  safer.  Wine  and  beer  are 
sometimes  given  to  horses,  especially  racers,  as  a 
stimulant.  The  tearing  of  their  own  flesh  (514)  is 
no  poetical  embellishment,  but  a  symptom  of  rabies, 
a  rare  disease  in  horses.3  It  is  not  unknown  in 
bad  cases  of  colic.  Rabies  in  dogs  has  already 
been  noticed  (496).  Somervile  shows  indebtedness 
to  Virgil  in  his  description  of  rabies  in  foxhounds 

1  '  Tussis  anhela '  (497)  cannot  refer  to  swine  fever,  which 
was  reported  from  twenty-five  counties  in  England  and 
Wales  in  July,  1913. 

2  The  same  applies  to  the  dry  and  hard  skin  (502).  Both 
points  are  noticed  by  Keightley. 

3  A  1912  report  from  the  Pasteur  Institute  of  Sao  Paulo  in 
Brazil  says  rabies  has  destroyed  nearly  all  the  cattle  and  horses 
of  a  certain  district  there. 

26 


Georgic  iii.   471 — 532 

(The  Chace,  bk.  iv.),  and   perhaps  Collins1  remem- 
bered him : 

'  There  every  herd  by  sad  experience  knows 

How,  winged  with  Fate,  their  elf-shot  arrows  fly, 
When  the  sick  ewe  her  summer  food  foregoes, 
Or  stretched  on  earth  the  heart-smit  heifers  lie.' 

The  beautiful  passage  which  follows  (515-530), 
well  known  to  readers  of  Calverley,  is  a  good  in- 
stance of  Virgil's  power  to  raise  his  subject  to  the 
highest  level.  Sellar  2  has  an  interesting  note  on  its 
accuracy :  '  The  truth  of  this  picture  is  confirmed  by 
a  modern  writer,  who,  in  her  idyllic  stories  from  the 
rural  life  of  France,  seems  from  time  to  time,  better 
than  any  modern  poet,  to  reproduce  the  Virgilian 
feeling  of  Nature.  ...  [A  long  descriptive  passage 
follows.]  .  .  .  Le  bouvier  dira :  "  C'est  une  paire 
de  boeufs  perdue :  son  frere  est  mort,  et  celui-la  ne 
travaillera  plus.  II  faudrait  pouvoir  l'engraisser  pour 
l'abattre ;  mais  il  ne  veut  pas  manger,  et  bientot  il 
sera  mort  de  faim."  ' 

The  '  uri '  of  532  are  the  '  silvestres  uri '  of  iii. 
374,  the  buffalo  of  Italy ;  not  the  '  uri '  of  Caesar 
(B.G.,  vi.  28).  These  latter  are  the  extinct  aurochs, 
compared  by  Caesar  to  elephants,  and  probably  iden- 
tical with  the  D**l  or  wild  ox  of  Job  xxxix.  9-12 
(cf.  Num.  xxiii.  22  and  Deut.  xxxiii.  17) : 

'  Canst  thou  bind  the  wild  ox  with  his  band  in  the  furrow  ? 
Or  will  he  harrow  the  valleys  after  thee  ?' 

1  W.  Collins,  Ode  on  Superstitions  of  Highlands. 

2  Sellar' s  Virgil,  p.  250. 

27 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

1  Sed  adsuescere  ad  homines  et  mansuefieri  ne 
parvuli  quidem  excepti  possunt.'1  If  Keightley  had 
studied  these  passages,  he  would  hardly  have  sug- 
gested that  Virgil  is  here  using  '  urns'  in  its  proper 
sense.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Caesar's  '  uri '  were 
ever  domesticated  ;  but  the  common  buffalo  is 
domesticated  in  Italy,  India,  Palestine,  and  Egypt. 
J.  G.  Wood  says  of  it :  '  Being  much  larger  and 
stronger  than  the  ordinary  cattle,  it  is  useful  in 
drawing  the  plough,  but  its  temper  is  too  uncertain 
to  render  it  a  pleasant  animal  to  manage.'2  In  Egypt 
the  bulls  are  killed  for  veal,  and  only  the  cows  used 
for  agricultural  purposes. 

At  537  Virgil  picks  up  the  '  ferarum  '  of  480.  The 
plague  affects  wild  creatures,  and  has  the  same  effect 
on  deer  as  hunger  in  a  hard  winter  (539).  These  ten 
lines  obviously  have  no  connection  with  a  cattle- 
plague.  But  Virgil  is  right  in  attributing  epidemic 
diseases  to  wild  beasts  and  birds  and  even  fish- 
Grouse  disease  and  salmon  disease  are  well  known. 
Wood-pigeons  a  few  years  ago  were  dying  of  a  kind 
of  diphtheria.  Trout  have  been  decimated  in  some 
streams  since  the  summer  of  191 1  by  a  mysterious 
disease  producing  blindness.  Both  salmon  and  trout 
have  been  dying  in  large  numbers  in  the  Usk,  and 
the  result  is  very  much  what  Virgil  depicts  in  541- 

542. 

The  conclusion  of  the  book  (547-end)  is  a  return 

to  the  cattle-plague,  and  a  powerful  piece  of  poetical 

description.      It    might    have   been   wrritten   of    the 

1  Caesar,  vi.  28.  2  Bible  Animals,  p.  115. 

28 


The  Ant 

plague   of    1865,   especially   556-560.      Cattle   were 
then  buried  in  pits  and  burnt  with  lime. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Virgil  to  end  thus.  Any 
return  to  the  brighter  side  of  things  would  have 
weakened  the  awfulness  and  pathos  of  the  scene : 

1  subeunt  morbi  tristisque  senectus 
Et  labor  et  durae  rapit  inclementia  mortis.' l 

§  2.  The  Ant,  i.  186  and  380. 

The  '  inopi  metuens  formica  senectae '  of  the  first 
passage  is  Milton's — 

'  Parsimonious  emmet,  provident 
Of  future,  in  small  room  large  heart  enclosed.' 

There  are  two  well-known  passages  in  the  Book  of 
Proverbs,  vi.  6-8  and  xxx.  24,  25,  which  speak  of  the 
ant  as  'providing  her  meat  in  the  summer.'  This 
is  a  truer  commentary  on  Virgil  than  any  of  his 
commentators'  notes,  which  either  ignore  the  passage 
altogether  or  deny  the  truth  of  it.  Conington  alone 
has  any  hint  of  the  facts,  which  he  has  obtained 
from  Mr.  Blackburn.  Keightley  dismisses  it  as  'all 
an  error.'  Even  such  distinguished  authorities  as 
Huber  and  Kirby  and  Spence  have  supported  him. 
But  Virgil  has  been  amply  vindicated. 

Charles  Darwin  procured  some  interesting  infor- 
mation from  Dr.  Lincecum,  who  studied  ants  in 
Texas  for  twelve  years.  It  is  reported  in  the  Journal 
of  the  Linnean  Society,  vol.  vi.,  no.  21 : 

'  During    protracted    wet   weather,    it    sometime 
1  Georg.,  iii.  67. 
29 


Beasts,  and  Insects  other  than  Bees 

happens  that  the  provision  stores  become  damp,  and 
are  liable  to  sprout  and  spoil.  In  this  case,  on  the 
first  fine  day  the  ants  bring  out  the  damp  and 
damaged  grain,  and  expose  it  to  the  sun  till  it  is  dry, 
when  they  carry  it  back  and  pack  away  all  the  sound 
seeds,  leaving  those  that  had  sprouted  to  waste.  .  .  . 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  [the  grain- 
bearing  grass]  is  intentionally  planted.  "  Ant-rice  "  is 
produced  by  high  cultivation,  all  weeds  being  cleared 
away.' 

Light  is  thus  incidentally  shed  on  the  second 
passage  (i.  380).  The  'ova'  which  the  ant  brings 
out  are  not  eggs,  but  grain.  Ants  also  bring  out 
their  larvae  to  enjoy  the  warmth  of  the  sun.  Virgil 
is,  of  course,  wrong  in  making  this  a  sign  of  rain, 
but  '  ova '  may  equally  well  be  larvae. 

*  Senectae  '  is  rightly  explained  by  Keightley  in  the 
light  of  Aeneid  iv.  403,  *  hiemis  memores,'  where  the 
passage  is  completed  by  '  tectoque  reponunt.'  The  con- 
fident errors  of  later  naturalists  with  regard  to  Euro- 
pean ants  arose  from  their  not  having  studied  them  in 
Mediterranean  countries.  Tristram1  throws  much 
interesting  light  on  this  point.  Of  104  known 
species  of  European  ants  only  three  are  known  to 
lay  up  stores  for  the  winter.  But  '  two  of  the  most 
common  species  of  the  Holy  Land  (Atta  barbara  and 
A  tta  structor)  are  strictly  seed-feeders,  and  in  summer 
lay  up  large  stores  of  grain  for  winter  use.  These 
species  are  spread  along  the  whole  of  the  Mediterranean 
coasts,  but  are  unknown  in  more  northern  climates.' 
1  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  pp.  320  and  496. 
30 


Cicada 

The  Mishna  legislates  about  the  granaries  of  ants 
found  in  corn-fields,  which  shows  that  they  must 
have  been  of  considerable  size. 

Horace1  has  the  same  thought  as  Virgil : 

'  Parvula,  nam  exemplo  est,  magni  formica  laboris 
Ore  trahit  quodcunque  potest  atque  acldit  acervo, 
Quern  struit  haud  ignara  ac  non  incauta  futuri.' 

Cf.  Appendix  B.,  §  14. 

§  3.  Cicada,  iii.  328. 

This  insect  is  the  rern^  of  the  Athenians,  cele- 
brated in  song,  and  worn,  as  a  golden  image,  in  their 
hair.  Martyn  describes  it  well,  and  adds  that  it  has 
not  been  found  on  this  side  of  the  Alps  and  Cevennes. 
Keightley  heard  them  in  the  trees  in  Lombardy,  and 
Page  says  of  them  that  '  at  midday  in  summer  the 
only  things  which  seem  alive  in  Italy  are  the  cicadas.' 
Byron  calls  them — 

'  The  shrill  cicadas,  people  of  the  pine, 
Making  their  summer  lives  one  ceaseless  song.' 

They  are  not  '  locustae '  or  grasshoppers,  and, 
according  to  Martyn,  make  a  noise  five  times  as 
loud.  '  Rumpent  arbusta '  is  very  expressive ;  cf. 
Theocritus  vii.  139  :  Terrcye^  XaXayevvres  eypv  irovov. 

Virgil  mentions  them  also  in  the  Eclogues  ii.  13, 2 
a  passage  which  Gilbert  White  applies  to  the  field 
cricket  (Gryllus  campestris)  of  England.  Heading 
his  letter3  with  'resonant  arbusta,'  he  says  that  'in 

2  Also  in  v.  77.       3  XLVL,  to  Barrington. 

31 


Beasts,  and   Insects  other  than   Bees 

hot  weather,  when  they  are  most  vigorous,  they 
make  the  hills  echo.  .  .  .  The  shrilling  of  the  field 
cricket,  though  sharp  and  stridulous,  yet  marvel- 
lously delights  some  hearers,  filling  their  minds  with 
a  train  of  summer  ideas  of  everything  that  is  rural, 
verdurous,  and  joyous.' 

The  Tern!;,  or  cicada,  seems  to  have  had  much  the 
same  effect  on  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  Anacreon's 
ode  and  many  passages  in  other  authors  contribute 
to  show. 


§  4.  Mus,  Talpa,  and  Curculio,  i.  181-186. 

As  these  three  pests  occur  in  the  same  context, 
it  will  be  convenient  to  consider  them  together. 

It  would  be  natural  to  identify  '  exiguus  mus  '  with 
Mus  minutus  (the  harvest  mouse)  ;  but  this  species 
makes  its  nests  in  the  open  field  at  a  height  of  six 
inches  to  a  foot  from  the  ground,  suspended,  like  the 
reed  warbler's,  between  the  stems  of  grasses  or  corn. 
It  is  found  in  Northern  Italy,  but  Virgil's  '  exiguus 
mus '  must  be  understood  generically  of  the  various 
other  species  which  haunt  granaries. 

The  mole  is  not  merely  not  eyeless,  but  has  the 
power  of  exposing  the  eyes  at  will.1  It  is  certainly 
sensitive  to  light,  but  perhaps  its  eyes  have  no 
further  use.  Hence  the  ancients  thought  it  en- 
tirely blind. 

Holdsworth    quaintly    observes :    '  This   was   the 

1  Cf.  Sir  H.  Johnston,  British  Mammals,  p.  60. 
32 


Mus,  Talpa,  and  Curculio 

vulgar   opinion.      Galen    knew   otherwise,    and   the 
microscope  has  fully  discovered  it  in  our  times. 

1  Curculio '  (also  '  Gurgulio ')  is  the  generic  name 
of  the  Curculionidae,  which  are  found  almost  all  over 
the  world.  Two  of  the  most  destructive  species  are 
the  corn  weevils,  Calandva  granaria  (or  Sitophilus 
granaritis)  and  Calandva  oryzae.  Each  larva  enters  a 
single  grain  and  devours  it.  Holdsworth  compares  the 
1  Gourgillon  '  and  '  Calendre '  of  the  French.  J.  G. 
Wood1  records  a  case  where  ten  hundredweight  of 
weevils  were  sifted  from  seventy-four  tons  of  Spanish 
wheat. 

The  construction  of  Virgil's  threshing-floor  was 
probably  very  effectual  in  keeping  out  pests,  for  it 
was  tested  by  Assheton  Smith,2  the  great  foxhunter, 
for  his  kennels,  and  '  the  hounds  were  strangers  to 
shoulder- lameness  ever  afterwards,'  all  the  yards 
being  laid  with  hard  clay  or  chalk,  which  excluded 
damp  completely. 

1  Insects  at  Home,  p.  185.  2  Life,  ch.  iv. 


33 


PART    II 

BIRDS 


§  I.  Anser. 

§  2.  Grus. 

§  3.  Ciconia. 

§  4.  Mergus  and  Fulica. 

§  5.  Corvus  and  Cornix. 

§  6.  Halcyon. 


§    7.  Noctua. 

§    8.  Nisus  and  Scylla. 

§    9.  Acalanthis. 

§  10.  Hirundo. 

§11.  Philomela. 

§  12.  Merops,  Cycnus,  Ardea. 


§  i.  Anser,  i.  119. 

Keightley  sees  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  is 
the  wild  goose.  '  Surely,'  he  says,  '  no  one  ever  saw 
wild  geese  in  a  cornfield.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  wild 
geese  are  not  only  frequently  seen  in  cornfields,  but 
are  shot  there  from  behind  the  hedges,  when  the 
moon  gives  sufficient  light ;  for  they  are  night  feeders 
and  very  wary.  It  is  true  that  domestic  geese  injure 
pasture  by  eating  the  best  parts  and  drawing  it  up  by 
the  roots,  but  Virgil  can  hardly  be  speaking  of  pasture 
here  (cf.  119  '  versando  terram ').  Holdsworth  ob- 
serves that  *  geese  are  still  very  pernicious  to  the 
corn  in  the  Campania  Felice — the  country  which 
Virgil  had  chiefly  in  his  eye,  when  he  was  writing 
his  Georgics.'1 

1  The  commonest  species  of  wild  goose  in  Italy  is,  accord- 
ing to  Dresser  (Birds  of  Europe),  the  bean  goose,  aptly  named 

34 


Grus 

The  goose  is  called  improbus,  like  the  cornix  in 
iii.  338  or  the  snake  in  iii.  431.  The  same  word  is 
applied  to  the  wolf  in  Aeneid  ix.  62,  and  to  the  eagle 
in  Aeneid  xii.  250,  and  also  to  inanimate  or  abstract 
things,  such  as  '  mons  '  and  *  labor.'  The  translators 
have  '  greedy,'  '  glutton,'  '  villain,'  '  reprobate,' 
'  wicked,'  and  '  tiresome.'  Conington  calls  the  goose 
1  unconscionable,  regardless  of  its  own  and  the 
farmer's  dues.'  If  we  compare  the  *  shameless ' 
stone1  of  Sisyphus,  we  have  all  the  meanings  of 
'  improbus  '  that  are  connoted  here,  and  there  is  a 
species  of  goose  for  every  one  of  them. 

§  2.  Grus,  i.  120,  307,  375. 

The  Strymonian  crane  (i.  120)  is  one  of  the 
farmer's  pests.  This  is  fully  borne  out  by  naturalists. 
Bowdler  Sharpe  says  it  eats  all  sorts  of  corn,  seeds, 
buckwheat,  and  peas.  Buffon  says  corn  is  its  favourite 
food,  and  mentions  one  that  was  found  full  of  beans, 
and  another  of  clover. 

In  i.  207  it  appears  to  be  game  rather  than  vermin. 
In  Horace's  banquet  (Sat,  ii.  8.  8y)  there  are  '  membra 
gruis  sparsi  sale  multo,  non  sine  farre/  as  a  special 
delicacy.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  quotes  Pliny  on  the 
subject.  The  crane  formerly  bred  in  England,  and 
was  much  esteemed  as  a  table  bird,  as  Yarrell  shows. 

In  i.  375  Sidgwick  takes  '  aeriae  '  predicatively,  and 

A  user  segetum,  for  it  eats  young  wheat  as  well  as  grain.     Wild 
duck  have  the  same  fondness  for  corn,  and  their  flesh  is  said 
to  be  much  improved  by  their  depredations. 
1  Odyssey,  xi.  598. 

35 


Birds 

Mackail  translates  :  'either  as  it  gathers  in  the 
valley  bottoms  the  crane  soars  high  in  flight  before  it ; 
or,'  etc.  The  other  translators,  except  Dryden,  follow 
Heyne,  Wagner,  Martyn,  Keightley,  Conington  and 
Page,  in  taking  '  vallibus  imis '  with  '  fugere '  as  a 
locative  ablative.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  the  majority  are  right.  '  Grues,  cum  imber 
ingruit,  petunt  valles ;  quare  iunge  vallibus  fugere ' 
(Wagner). 

Virgil  is  thinking  of  '  such  a  storm  as  descends  in 
autumn  from  the  Alps  upon  the  plains  of  Lombardy.' 
So  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  introduces  the  passage,  but 
he  has  an  unfortunate  misprint  in  his  quotation  from 
Rhoades.  The  '  high-soaring  cranes  flee  to  the 
vales,'  not '  to  the  hills.'  This  agrees  with  Aristotle  :* 
his  cranes  take  observations  from  aloft,  and  if  they 
see  a  storm  coming  seek  cover. 

§  3.  '  Candida  .  .  .  avis  longis  invisa  colubris, 
ii.  320. 

This  is  by  common  consent  Ciconia  alba,  the 
white  stork.  It  is  a  migrant  in  Mediterranean 
countries,  and  not  common  anywhere  now,  except 
in  Spain,  where  it  breeds  freely.  It  is  a  most  useful 
bird,  feeding  chiefly  on  snakes  and  other  reptiles ; 
and,  unlike  the  crane,  it  is  a  friend  to  the  farmer.2 
'  Doubtless  the  bird  arrived  in  great  numbers  in 
spring  on  the  Mantuan  marches,  and  found  abundance 
of  food  there  in  the  way  of  frogs  and  snakes.     Its 

1  H.  A.,  ix.  10.  2  Warde  Fowler,  op.  cit.,  p.  229. 

36 


Ciconia 

snake-eating  propensity  was  considered  so  valuable 
in  Thessaly,  that  the  bird  was  preserved  there  by  law, 
says  Aristotle.'1  Pliny  (x.  31)  has  some  interesting 
remarks  :  '  Ciconiae  quonam  e  loco  veniant,  aut  quo 
se  referant,  incompertum  adhuc  est.  E  longinquo 
venire  non  dubium,  eodem  quo  grues  modo :  illas 
hiemis,  has  aestatis  advenas.  Honos  iis  serpentium 
exitio  tantus,  ut  in  Thessalia  capitale  fuerit  occidisse, 
eademque  legibus  poena,  quae  in  homicidam.' 

Cf.  *  Serpente  ciconia  pullos 
Nutrit  et  inventa  per  devia  rura  lacerta.' 

(Juvenal,  xiv.  74.) 

The  migration  of  the  stork  is  cited  as  an  example 
of  punctual  obedience  in  Jeremiah  viii.  7,  and  if  the 
translation  be  right  three  other  of  Virgil's  birds  share 
the  same  honour :  '  Yea,  the  stork  in  the  heaven 
knoweth  her  appointed  times ;  and  the  turtle  and 
the  swallow2  and  the  crane3  observe  the  time  of  their 
coming  ;  but  my  people  know  not  the  ordinance  of  the 

Lord.' 

§  4.  Mergus  and  Fulica,  i.  361-363. 

The  identification  of  these  two  birds  is  beset  with 
difficulty,  as  Conington's  note  shows.  There  is 
general  agreement  that  '  Mergus '  is  some  species 
or  all  species  of  gull,  though  the  name  is  more 
suggestive  of  a  cormorant  or  diver.  Modern  orni- 
thologists apply  Lams  to  the  gull,  and  Mergus  to  the 
Merganser  and  kindred  species.  It  is  therefore  not 
surprising  that  Martyn  translates  it  by  '  cormorant ' 
and  Voss  by  '  diver.'  But  Virgil's  Mergus  does 
1  Mirabilia,  23.  2  Or  '  swift/  3  Or  •  swallow.' 

37 


Birds 

exactly  what  gulls  are  observed  to  do  now.  In 
stormy  weather  they  may  be  seen  in  the  Midlands 
of  England  feeding  among  rooks  in  the  fields.  Here, 
in  Cheshire,  we  see  them  every  day.  Their  great 
powers  of  wing  enable  them  to  travel  long  distances 
overland  till  better  weather  recalls  them  to  their 
natural  home. 

This  does  not  apply  to  the  cormorant,  which  is 
a  short-wringed  heavy  bird,  like  the  ducks  and  divers. 
The  question  is  whether  *  Fulica '  is  the  cormorant. 
Mr.  Warde  Fowler  gives  it  up,  and  Page  discreetly 
ignores  both  Mergus  and  Fulica.  Martyn,  Black- 
more,  and  Mackail  translate  it  '  sea-coot,'  which,  as 
Mr.  Fowler  puts  it,  is  '  correct  but  meaningless.' 
Papillon  and  Haigh  say' "shags"  or  "coots,"'  ap- 
parently under  the  impression  that  they  are  the  same 
bird.  Fulica  is  usually  understood  to  be  the  coot 
{fulica  atra),  and  coots  frequent  the  sea  in  large 
flocks — e.g.,  in  Poole  harbour,  especially  in  winter. 
But  coots  certainly  prefer  fresh  water,  and  are 
seldom  seen  on  land  at  all.  Fulica  (cf.  Fulix  and 
Fuligula)  means  a  bird  of  dingy  colour,  and  is  the 
French  'foulque.'1  In  Southern  France  the  coot  is 
called  '  macreuse,'  which  in  Northern  France  is 
applied  to  the  scoter.  Moreover,  North  American 
wildfowlers  call  scoters  coots.  The  scoter  (Oedemia 
nigra),  with  the  surf  scoter  and  velvet  scoter,  is  a 
real  sea-duck,  and  deserves  the  epithet  '  marina.' 
The  chief  objection  is  that  '  of  all  ducks  the  scoter 
has  perhaps  the  most  marine  habits,  keeping  the  sea 
1  Newton,  Diet,  of  Birds. 

38 


Mergus  and  Fulica 

in  all  weathers,  and  rarely  resorting  to  land.' *  Virgil 
might  well  have  used  the  same  name  for  coot  and 
scoter,  but  probably  his  *  fulica  marina '  is  neither. 

In  spite  of  the  witty  version  of  *  in  sicco,'  etc. — 
1  Loons  disport  themselves  on  dry  matters ' — grebes 
must  be  ruled  out  on  account  of  their  colour.  On 
the  whole,  '  cormorant '  seems  the  best  translation 
of  Fulica.  Keightley  thinks  it  is  the  '  shag  or 
cormorant,'  apparently  identifying  the  two.  The 
error  is  small,  for  the  shag  is  the  green  cormorant, 
a  smaller  species  of  the  same.  Pliny  supports  this 
view  by  saying  that  the  Fulica  has  a  crest.  The 
cormorant,  though  thoroughly  amphibious,  has  a 
habit  of  sitting  in  groups  on  a  rock  and  hanging  out 
its  wings  to  dry.  It  may  be  to  this  that  Virgil  is 
alluding.  To  anyone  unfamiliar  with  it  the  sight 
of  the  upright  forms  of  these  birds,  with  their  wings 
spread  out  but  motionless,  is  very  curious. 

Professor  Newton  derives  '  cormorant '  from  '  corvus 
marinus.'  It  is  remarkable  that  the  French  is  *  cor 
marin  '  and  the  Italian  '  corvo  marine'  No  one  with 
Virgil's  powers  of  observation  would  have  confused 
a  cormorant  with  a  coot ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that 
the  same  name  did  duty  for  both  with  different  people, 
just  as  in  some  parts  of  this  country  a  great  tit  is 
called  a  blackcap,  and  a  yellowhammer  a  goldfinch. 
Yarrell 2  observes  that  in  Ireland  and  Wales  and  on 
the  Scotch  border  the  name  of  '  crane '  is  frequently 
applied  to  the  heron,  and  sometimes  to  the  cormorant 
and  other  long-necked  birds. 

1  Newton,  Did.  of  Birds.  2  Vol.  iii.,  p.  182. 

39 


Birds 

§   5.    CORVUS   AND   CORNIX,  i.  382,  388,  410. 

The  Corvus  is  mentioned  in  two  passages  that 
occur  close  together  (Georg.,  i.  382  and  410).  It  has 
given  some  trouble  to  commentators  owing  to  the 
loose  use  of  the  name  in  other  writers,  and  the  fact 
that  the  crow  and  the  rook  are  both  rare  in  Italy. 
Lewis  and  Short's  Dictionary  translates  it  '  raven,' 
and  gives  no  reference  to  Virgil.  Martyn  has  '  raven ' 
without  comment.  Dryden,  with  unpardonable  folly, 
has  '  rooks '  in  the  first  passage  and  '  ravens  '  in  the 
second.  Blackmore  has  '  crows,'  possibly  using  it 
as  a  rustic  synonym  for  '  rooks.'  But  whatever  be 
the  case  with  other  writers,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Virgil  means  the  rook.  In  both  passages  his 
Corvus  is  gregarious,  whereas  the  raven  and  the  crow 
are  not. 

Moreover,  Virgil  was  probably  familiar  with  the 
sight  of  a  rookery.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  speaks  of 
'  the  delightful  discovery  that  the  rooks  still  stay  and 
breed  in  the  sub-Alpine  neighbourhood  where  Virgil 
passed  his  early  life.'  Bosworth  Smith1  says  that 
rooks  still  breed  near  Mantua,  and  nowhere  else  in 
Italy.  Newton  says :  '  The  district  in  which  Virgil 
was  born  and  educated  is  about  the  only  part  of  Italy 
in  which  the  rook  breeds.'  Bowdler  Sharpe  says  it 
breeds  locally  in  Northern  Italy.  A  more  recent 
writer,  the  Countess  Cesaresco,2  says  that  rooks  are 

1  Bird  Life  and  Bird  Lore,  pp.  373-374. 

2  The  Outdoor  Life  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  Poets,  191 1, 
p.  130. 

40 


Corvus  and  Cornix 

now  found  only  in  the  pathless  Maremne  or  the 
deserts  of  Southern  Italy.  Whatever  be  the  exact 
truth,  it  seems  to  be  established  that  the  rook  is  an 
indigenous  species  in  Italy,  and  may  have  been  more 
abundant  in  Virgil's  time. 
Shelley  heard  rooks  in  Italy : 

'  'Mid  the  mountains  Euganean 
I  stood  listening  to  the  pasan, 
With  which  the  legioned  rooks  did  hail 
The  sun's  uprise  majestical.' 

{Lines  written  among  the  Euganean  hills.) 

Newton  and  Pennant  have  agreed  that  the  rook  is 
the  Corvus  of  Virgil.  Shelley's  '  legioned  rooks '  are 
admirably  depicted  in  382,  which  may  be  illustrated 
by  a  passage  from  Richard  Jefferies:1 

*  After  the  nesting-time  is  over  and  they  have  got 
back  to  their  old  habits — which  during  that  period 
are  quite  reversed  (cf.  410  et  seq.) — it  is  a  sight  to  see 
from  hence  the  long  black  stream  in  the  air  steadily 
flowing  onwards  to  the  wood  below.  They  stretch 
from  here  to  the  roosting-trees,  fully  a  mile  and  a 
half — literally  as  the  crow  flies — and  backwards  in 
the  opposite  direction  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see.  It 
is  safe  to  estimate  that  the  aerial  army's  line  of  march 
extends  over  quite  five  miles  in  one  unbroken  corps.' 

'  Densis  alis '  may  be  a  mistranslation  of  the  irripa 
7rvKvd2  of  Aratus,  as  Conington  thinks,  but  more 
probably  Virgil  altered  it,  not  merely  '  to  suit  the 
military  comparison'  (Page),  but  because  he  knew 

1  Wild  Life  in  a  Southern  County,  ch.  xv. 

2  '  Closely-feathered  wings.5 

41 


Birds 

that  rooks'  wings  are  not  thickly  feathered,  and  show 
the  light  between  the  quills  when  extended. 

The  other  passage  (410-414)  is  also  true  to  nature. 
The  '  liquidae  voces '  are  always  heard  in  spring. 
Mr.  G.  A.  B.  Dewar  described  it  well  in  January, 
1  g  12,  in  the  Morning  Post ; 

1  A  few  hours  before  writing  this  I  heard  a  kind 
of  falsetto  cawk  in  the  elm,  looked  up  through  the 
wretched  drizzle,  and  saw  two  pairs  of  rooks  woo- 
ing. .  .  .  The  male  made  a  kind  of  obeisance  to 
his  partner,  and  as  he  did  so  his  tail  went  up  and 
opened  like  a  fan.  He  raised  his  voice  and  it 
broke.' 

Lines  415-423,  to  quote  Sellar,1  '  elevate  the  whole 
description  into  the  higher  air  of  imaginative  con- 
templation." They  are  entirely  Virgil's  own.  They 
may  be  contrasted  with  iv.  219-227.  Here  he  is 
recalling  Lucretius  v.  1078-1090.  Though  rooks  are 
not  usually  regarded  as  weather  prophets,  they  are 
social  creatures,  like  the  bees,  and  possess  plenty  of 
intelligence.  A  great  Bishop2  is  recorded  to  have 
said  of  them  :  '  Depend  upon  it,  the  rook  has  a  deep 
purpose  in  everything  which  he  does.'  Though  Virgil 
contrasts  them,  by  implication,  with  the  bees,  he 
certainly  makes  them,  as  Page  points  out,  *  living 
and  intelligent,  which  is  all  the  anima  mundi  can  do 
for  them.' 

The  cornix  (i.  388J  is  either  the  crow  or  the  raven, 
or  possibly  both.     Mr.  Warde  Fowler  inclines  to  the 

1  Sellar's  Virgil,  p.  197. 

2  Westcott,  Bosworth  Smith,  p.  384. 

42 


Corvus  and  Cornix 

raven,  ■  seeing  that,  at  the  present  day,  it  is  much  the 
commoner  bird  of  the  two  in  Italy.' 

Of  Lucretius  v.  1084  Munro  remarks  :  *  Cornices  or 
Corvi  are  clearly  used  here  with  poetical  licence,  and 
between  them  include  the  whole  crow  kind;  greges 
would  be  singularly  inappropriate  to  the  primary 
sense  of  covvi?  But  perhaps,  after  all,  Lucretius 
meant  the  rook  by  '  corvorumque  greges,1  and  used 
'cornicum  saecla  vetusta1  for  its  non-gregarious  con- 
geners. The  carrion  crow  is  very  like  a  miniature 
raven,  but  the  whole  passage  suits  the  raven,  on 
the  whole,  best ;  and  most  translators  rightly  prefer 
'raven'  here.  Bosworth  Smith1  devotes  to  this 
fascinating  bird  three  chapters,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  writes :  '  His  walk  is,  like  himself,  stately 
and  deliberate,  especially  when  he  is  searching  the 
seashore,  .  .  .  never  so  well  described  as  in  one  line 
of  Virgil,  remarkable  alike  for  its  rhythm  and  its 
alliteration  : 

1  And  stalks  in  stately  solitude  along  the  dry  sea-sand.' 
Page  aptly  quotes  Poe's  '  Raven  ' : 
'  In  there  stepped  a  stately  raven  from  the  saintly  days  of  yore.' 
Lucan  (v.  556)  has : 

'  Instabili  gressu  metitur  litora  cornix.' 

§  6.  Halcyon  or  Alcyon,  i.  399  and  iii.  338. 

Most  translators  keep  the  name,  but  Mr.  Mackail 
renders  it  '  kingfisher,'  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
1  Op.  tit,  p.  86. 
43 


Birds 

that  he  is  right.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  supports  this 
view,  quoting  Pliny's  detailed  description.  It  is 
Tennyson's  *  sea-blue  bird  of  March,'  which  he  took 
from  Ataman's  dXt7r6pcj)vpo<;  etapos  opvw. 

But  whether  the  Greek  aX/cvcov  is  the  kingfisher 
may  be  questioned.  Tristram  identifies  it  with  a 
tern  (Ibis,  1893,  p.  215),  and  Mr.  Warde  Fowler 
agrees  with  him.  Thompson  (Greek  Birds)  identifies 
it  with  the  swallow,  as  the  bird  of  spring,  and  has 
no  doubt  that  the  halcyon  legend  had  an  astronomical 
origin.  He  quotes  Suidas  as  saying  that  the  Pleiades 
were  called  'AX/cuoVe?.  In  his  note  on  Theocritus  vii. 
57,  Kynaston  concludes  that  '  we  cannot  ascertain 
what  bird  the  halcyon  was ;  it  certainly  was  not  the 
kingfisher.' 

Virgil's  alcyon  is  partly  mythical.  The  real  king- 
fisher utters  only  a  single  note,  resembling  the  alarm 
note  of  the  swallow,  and  certainly  does  not  sing,  as 
in  iii.  338  it  is  supposed  to  do.  The  myth,  perpetu- 
ated in  some  of  our  English  poets,  is,  of  course,  non- 
sense.1 But  Virgil  obviously  had  a  real  bird  in  his 
mind,  as  he  had  in  the  case  of  the  '  acalanthis,'  and 
that  bird  was  our  kingfisher  (Alcedo  ispida),  which  is 
a  resident  in  Italy. 

1  '  Secure  as  when  the  Halcyon  breeds,  with  these 
He  that  was  born  to  drown  might  cross  the  seas.' 

Dryden,  Astraea  Redux,  236. 

'  The  halcyons  brood  around  the  foamless  isles.' 

Shelley,  Epipsychidion, 
Cf.  Appendix  B,  §  11. 


44 


Noctua 

§  7.  Noctua,  i.  403. 

*  Noctua '  is  probably  the  y\av^  of  Athens,  the 
sacred  originator  of  yXavK  'Adtfva^e1  and  of  the 
yXav/ces  Aavptcort/cai,'2  the  little  owl  or  A  thcne  noctua 
of  naturalists.  Tristram3  describes  his  habits  in 
Palestine  :  '  In  the  tombs  or  on  the  ruins,  among 
the  desolate  heaps  which  mark  the  sites  of  ancient 
Judah,  on  the  sandy  mounds  of  Beersheba,  or  on  the 
spray-beaten  fragments  of  Tyre,  his  low,  wailing  note 
is  sure  to  be  heard  at  sunset,  and  himself  seen  bow- 
ing and  keeping  time  to  his  own  music' 

Waterton,  who  obtained  his  specimens  in  Italy, 
was  the  first  to  introduce  this  bird  as  a  resident 
English  species  in  1843.  Since  then  several  other 
attempts  have  been  made,  notably  by  Lord  Lilford, 
with  the  result  that  in  Northamptonshire  at  least 
the  little  owl  has  become  a  serious  nuisance  to  the 
game-preserver.  It  hunts  by  day,  and,  as  Virgil 
implies,  does  not  wait  till  the  sun  has  set  before  it 
begins  to  hoot ;  unlike  the  more  familiar  brown  or 
tawny  owl,  whose  soft  musical  voice  is  so  frequently 
heard  after  dark.  The  white  or  barn  owl,  Bosworth 
Smith4  observes,  '  screeches,  snaps,  snorts,  snores, 
squawks,  hisses ;  but  it  is  now,  I  think,  established 
that  he  never  hoots.' 

What  the  precise  meaning  of  line  403  is  in  this 
context  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  Heyne  and 
Martyn  quote  Pliny  (xviii.  87) :  '  Sic  noctua  in  imbre 

1  A  proverb  equivalent  to  '  carrying  coals  to  Newcastle.' 

2  Greek  coins  stamped  with  the  figure  of  an  owl. 

3  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  195.  4  Op.  cit.,  p.  16. 

45 


Birds 

garrula,  at  sereno  [praesagit]  tempestatem. '  Martyn 
has  a  lengthy  and  very  unconvincing  discussion,  in 
which  he  decides  that  '  nequiquam  '  is  equivalent  to 
1  non.'  Wagner  is  brief  and  to  the  point :  '  Nequidq. 
quasi  quae  cantu  suo  turbulentam  tempestatem 
revocare  velit.' 

This  is  the  meaning  preferred  by  Keightley  and 
Page.  The  ill-omened  prophet  of  rain  now  calls 
unheeded. 

But  perhaps  Virgil's  meaning  is  simpler  than  they 
suppose.  Aratus  refers  to  the  hooting  of  the  owl  as 
a  sign  of  fair  weather  : 

Kai  WKrepirj  y\av£ 
"H(rvxov  deidova-a  fiapaivofievov  x«/ia>i>os 
TivecrBa)  roi  arjfxa. 

(Aiocrrjn,  267.) 

This  seems  to  satisfy  Conington,  who  explains 
1  nequiquam  '  of  '  prolonged  objectless  effort.'  The 
word  '  nequiquam  '  and  the  rhythm  of  the  two  lines 
are  very  suggestive  of  this  solemn  bird  as  he  appears 
in  poetry  of  a  later  date : 

1  The  moping  owl  doth  to  the  moon  complain.' l 

But  the  owl,  like  the  nightingale,  is  probably  a  happy 
bird.    Wordsworth  in  '  The  Evening  Walk  '  was  led  to 

change 

'  The  tremulous  sob  of  the  complaining  owl.' 
into 

1  The  sportive  outcry  of  the  mocking  owl.' 

Of  course  Gray  and  Wordsworth  were  writing  of 
the    brown   or   tawny  owl,  not  of    the    little    owl. 
1  Gray's  Elegy. 

46 


Nisus  and  Scylla 

Thomson  *  suggests  that  a  spirit  of  sarcasm  possessed 
the  Greeks  when  they  chose  this  '  veritable  buffoon 
among  birds '  as  a  type  of  wisdom. 

On  the  Continent  the  little  owl  is  used  as  a  decoy 
for  small  birds,  which  come  to  tease  it,  and  are  caught 
with  birdlime.  It  ranges  throughout  Southern  Europe, 
and  is  called  '  la  civetta '  by  the  Italians,  and  *  la 
petite  chouette,'  or  *  chouette  cheveche '  by  the 
French. 

The  female  measures  nj  and  the  male  8|  inches 
in  length  (Bowdler  Sharpe).  Dresser's  measurements 
are  9  and  8*2  inches  respectively. 

§  8.  Nisus  and  Scylla,  i.  404-409. 

The  story  of  Nisus  and  Scylla  is  evidently  an 
setiological  myth.  Virgil  is  describing  what  he  had 
often  seen,  an  eagle  or  falcon  pursuing  some  smaller 
bird.  Lines  406-409  are  found  also  in  the  pseudo- 
Virgilian  Ciris.  Thompson2  considers  them  out  of 
place  and  keeping  here,  and  finds  an  elaborate  ex- 
planation of  the  story  in  a  sun  and  moon  myth. 
Both  criticisms  are  quite  unnecessary.  The  whole 
picture  is  beautifully  true  to  nature.  Nisus  *  waits 
on,'  as  falcons  do,  at  a  great  height  till  he  sees  his 
quarry.  He  *  stoops  ' '  magno  stridore.'  (The  *  stoop  ' 
of  the  peregrine  is  audible  at  a  considerable  distance, 
from  its  marvellous  speed.)  Having  missed  his  *  stoop,' 
he  has  to  mount  again  for  another  one.  Meanwhile 
the  quarry  makes  the  most  of  the  interval.     Some 

1  Britain's  Birds.  2  Greek  Birds. 

47 


Birds 

birds  are  very  clever  at  dodging  the  falcon  ;  for 
instance,  the  lapwing  or  peewit  has  such  powers  of 
flight  that  no  tame  falcon  can  take  her. 

Both  names  are  left  untranslated  by  cautious 
scholars.  Scylla  cannot  be  identified  with  anything 
except  the  Ciris ;  which  does  not  help  us. 

Nisus  appears  in  Sidgwick's  notes  as  an  osprey,  and 
in  Blackmore  as  a  kestrel.  Neither  can  be  supported. 
The  osprey  is  exclusively  a  fish-hawk,  and  the  kestrel 
preys  chiefly  on  mice  and  insects,  though  here  and  there 
an  individual  of  this  species  prefers  young  pheasants. 
Blackmore  renders  Scylla  by  '  lark  ';  and  if  he  had 
chosen  '  merlin  '  for  Nisus,  he  would  have  done  well. 
Trained  merlins  are  still  used  for  lark-hawking.  As 
it  happens,  Nisus  has  been  appropriated  by  naturalists 
for  the  sparrowhawk  (Accipiter  nisus),  which  is  very 
fond  of  small  birds. 

But  the  picture  is  far  more  suggestive  of  one  of 
the  eagles  or  long-winged  hawks.  The  Haliaetus  of 
the  myth  is,  according  to  Lewis  and  Short,  the 
1  osprey  or  sea-eagle.'  They  are,  of  course,  entirely 
different  species,  though  the  name  Haliaetus  is 
applied  by  naturalists  to  both.  The  osprey  (Pandion 
haliaetus)  must  be  ruled  out,  for  reasons  given  above. 
The  white-tailed   or   sea-eagle    (Haliaetus  albicilla)1 

1  Thomson  (Britain's  Birds)  has  an  interesting  observation 
on  the  white-headed  or  bald  eagle  of  North  America.  This 
bird  swoops  at  the  osprey  and  forces  him  to  drop  the  fish  he 
has  caught.  '  Then,  darting  like  a  thunderbolt,  head  first,  and 
with  wings  working  to  increase  the  awe-inspiring  speed,  the 
eagle  overtakes  the  falling  fish  and  sweeps  off  with  it  in  an 
ascending  curve.' 

48 


Acalanthis 

may  stand  as  a  translation  of  Nisus,  but  the  name 
had  better  be  taken  as  a  generic  term  for  the  larger 
falconidae,  especially  those  that  habitually  take  their 
prey  on  the  wing,  striking  it  down  with  the  powerful 
hind-claw. 


§  9.  Acalanthis,  iii.  338. 

It  is  impossible  to  identify  this  bird  with  anything 
like  certainty.  The  older  commentators  and  translators 
make  it  a  goldfinch  or  a  linnet.  Thompson  (Greek 
Birds)  thinks  it  is  one  or  the  other.  But  it  is  far 
more  likely  to  be  a  warbler.  "'KtcavOi?  and  aica\av6i<; 
appear  to  be  synonymous.  'A/cavOvWis,  according  to 
Liddell  and  Scott,  is  the  '  pendulous  titmouse,'  which 
might  mean  any  titmouse. 

The  Scholia  on  Theocritus  vii.  141  make  aicavQis 
synonymous  with  a/cavOvWis  and  ttoociXLs.  Aristotle1 
describes  the  nest  of  the  aKavOvWls  as  '  woven  like 
a  ball  of  flax,  with  a  small  entrance.'  Four  chapters 
farther  on  he  says  of  the  aicavOLs  that  it  is  a 
bird  of  mean  habits  and  colour,  but  shrill  voice. 
It  is  not  likely  that  he  is  describing  the  same  bird 
under  two  names,  but  both  these  passages  point  to 
the  three  warblers  which  puzzled  Gilbert  White,  the 
willow  wren,  wood  wren,  and  chiffchaff.2  Mr.  Warde 
Fowler  has  a  very  interesting  discussion.     In  a  note 

1  H.  A.  ix.  13  and  17. 

2  The  wood  wren  is  the  largest  and  the  chiffchaff  the 
smallest  of  the  three.  They  are  very  difficult  to  distinguish  at 
sight,  but  the  songs  are  unmistakable. 

49  E 


Birds 

on  p.  246  of  his  book  he  refers  to  the  epigram  of 
Agathias  in  the  Greek  Anthology :  /cat  \cyvpbv 
ftopPewriv  aicavOlhes — '  a  sibilant  trill  is  probably 
what  is  meant  .  .  .  suggesting  the  grasshopper- 
warbler  or  the  sedge  -  warbler.'  It  is  strange  that 
he  does  not  mention  the  wood- warbler  (or  wren),1 
the  bird  that  Gilbert  White2  heard  making  a  '  sibilant 
shivering  noise  in  the  tops  of  tall  woods.'  The 
sedge-warbler's  song  is  hardly  a  sibilant  trill,  and  of 
the  grasshopper-warbler  he  himself  writes :  *  Our 
bird's  noise — we  can  hardly  call  it  a  voice — is  like 
that  of  a  well-oiled  fisherman's  reel.'3  This  is  an 
excellent  simile. 

According  to  Servius,  some  people  identified  Virgil's 
bird  with  the  nightingale, '  alii  lusciniam  esse  volunt.' 
But  Virgil  mentions  the  nightingale  by  name  else- 
where, and  evidently  knew  him  well  (Georg.,  iv.  511). 
There  is  one  more  bird  that  may  be  worth  suggesting 
— namely,  the  blackcap.  Virgil  must  have  had  a 
typical  songster  in  his  mind,  and  many  observers 
agree  with  Gilbert  White  in  ranking  the  blackcap 
second  only  to  the  nightingale  as  a  singer.  The 
blackcap  is  found  in  Southern  Europe,  and  very 
likely  Virgil  had  often  heard  the  peculiarly  sweet 
and  varied  tones  of  that  warbler. 

The  translation  *  warbler'  (Mackail)  is  lamentably 
weak,  but  must  be  admitted  as  the  most  accurate 
that  knowledge  allows.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  has 
made  out  an  excellent  case  for  the  Phylloscopi,  and 

1  Which  he  treats  in  ch.  v.  2  Letter  X.,  to  Pennant. 

3  Op.  cit.,  p.  157. 

50 


Hirundo 

we  cannot  safely  go  further  from  a  scientific  stand- 
point :  '  In  Italy  and  Greece  the  number  of  species 
of  these  little  birds  is  much  larger  than  in  England, 
and  it  is  hardly  possible  that  they  could  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  either  poet  or  naturalist.  It  is  with 
these  that  I  think  we  are  to  identify  the  acanthis  and 
acanthyllis  of  Aristotle,  the  acanthis  of  Theocritus,  and 
the  acalanthis  of  Virgil.' 

It  is  curious  that  the  name  afcavOvXkfc  is  now 
applied  to  the  rare  needle-tailed  swift  (Acanthyllis 
caudacuta),  an  Asiatic  species  which  is  said  to  have 
occurred  only  twice  in  Great  Britain  and  nowhere 
else  in  Europe.  A  specimen  was  obtained  at  Ring- 
wood,  in  Hampshire,  in  the  summer  of  1911. 

§  10.  Hirundo,  i.  377;  iv.  15,  307. 

Of  the  first  of  these  passages  Conington  writes: 
'"Arguta,"  not  a  perpetual  epithet,  but  denoting 
that  she  twitters  as  she  flies.'  As  a  matter  of  fact 
she  does  not,  unless  the  alarm-note  can  be  called 
twittering.  Sidgwick  explains  it  '  of  the  sharp 
twitter  of  the  excited  swallow.'  The  song  or 
warble  of  the  swallow  is  uttered  from  a  perch,  but 
the  note  used  on  the  wing  is  a  shrill  double  pipe, 
for  which  the  epithet  '  arguta '  is  very  suitable. 
There  is  no  connection  between  it  and  damp 
weather  or  flying  round  a  pool ;  hence  it  probably 
is  a  perpetual  epithet,  like  the  '  garrula '  of  iv.  307. 
Swallows  fly  low  before  rain,  as  everyone  knows, 
because  the  insects  fly  low  when  the  atmosphere  is 

5i 


Birds 

moist.     Aratus1  has  a  pretty  touch  which  Virgil  has 
omitted : 

J'H  \ifivrjv  irep\  dr]8a  ;(eXi§(W?  ai(r<rovTai, 
Taxrripi  TvnTnvaai  avrcos  elXvixevov  vdcop. 

Mackail  rightly  translates,  *  the  shrill  swallow.' 

The '  Procne '  of  iv.  1 5  is  discussed  under  the  heading 
of  '  Bees.'  '  Manibus  signata  cruentis  '  is  doubtless  a 
mythological  explanation  of  the  common  swallow's  red 
throat.  There  is  another  closely-allied  species  found  in 
Southern  Europe  called  the '  chestnut-bellied  swallow ' 
(Hirundo  savignii),  which  has  all  the  under-parts  of  a 
reddish  colour ;  but,  according  to  Dresser,2  it  is  not 
common,  and  there  is  no  need  to  suppose  that  any 
but  the  common  species  was  in  Virgil's  mind  here. 

The  Hirundo  of  iv.  307  is  undoubtedly  the  house- 
martin,  as  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  points  out.  Not  one 
of  the  commentators  or  translators  seems  to  be  aware 
of  this,  except  Conington's  editors,  who  have  copied 
Mr.  Fowler.  The  question  is  settled  by  *  suspendit.' 
The  swallow  does  not,  as  a  rule,  hang  her  nest,  but 
builds  it  upon  a  beam  or  brick  or  some  such  support,3 
and  leaves  it  open  at  the  top.  The  martin  builds 
it  against  a  wall,  whether  of  brick,  wood,  or  rock,  and 
roofs  it  in.  *  Garrula '  is  an  excellent  word  for  the 
'  prattling  '  of  martins  in  the  nest,  a  sound  which  may 
be  heard  long  after  sunset. 

1  Hirundo '  doubtless  includes  all  the  swallow  tribe. 

1  Aioo-77/x,  212.     Cf.  Appendix  B,  §  10. 

2  Birds  of  Europe. 

3  Exceptions  to  this  are  numerous,  but  the  nest  is  never 
domed. 

52 


Philomela 

It  is  used  as  their  generic  name  now.  To  many 
Englishmen,  and  still  more  Englishwomen, '  swallow' 
means  anything  from  a  swift  to  a  sand-martin ;  but 
they  are  easily  distinguished,  especially  in  their  nest- 
ing operations,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  Virgil  did 
not  know  the  difference  between  them.  Modern 
ornithologists  have  decided  that  the  swift  is  not  a 
true  Hirundo. 

There  is  a  beautiful  description  of  a  swallow  in 
Aeneid  xii.  473-477.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler1  writes  of 
it :  *  This  simile  is,  I  think,  the  most  perfect  passage 
about  the  swallow  that  I  have  ever  met  with  in 
poetry.' 

§  11.  Philomela,  iv.  511. 

This  is  the  only  passage  in  which  Virgil  mentions 
the  nightingale.  Though  slightly  less  true  to  Nature 
than  Homer's  {Odyssey  xix.  518),  it  is  a  singularly 
beautiful  one.  In  England  the  nightingale  does  not 
sing  after  the  young  are  hatched.2  This  objection 
has  been  triumphantly  refuted  by  the  Countess 
Cesaresco  in  her  recent  book.3  It  is  not  true,  she 
tells  us,  of  Italy.  Take  the  train  to  Mantua  in  June, 
and  nightingales  '  drown  the  noise  of  the  engine.' 

Mr.  Warde  Fowler  {Classical  Review,  Febru- 
ary, 1890)  thought  Virgil  was  wrong  in  making  the 
bird  sing  under  the  thin  poplar  shade  instead  of  in 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  249. 

2  Cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  CII. 

3  Outdoor  Life  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  Poets,  p.  129.  Cf.  Ap- 
pendix A,  §  2. 

53 


Birds 

a  thick  bush,  till  one  day  at  Godstow  he  was 
*  rebuked  and  delighted '  by  finding  a  nightingale 
doing  precisely  what  Virgil  describes. 

It  is,  of  course,  the  male  bird  that  sings,1  and  the 
song  is  not  inspired  by  sorrow.  Milton2  came  under 
the  lash  of  Coleridge  for  his : 

1 "  Most  musical,  most  melancholy  "  bird.' 
But  he  sang  more  truly  in  another  passage3  of 

'  The  wakeful  nightingale  : 
She  all  night  long  her  am'rous  descant  sung." 

It  was  a  spirit  of  religious  mysticism,  as  Coleridge4 
points  out,  that 

'  First  named  these  notes  a  melancholy  strain, 
And  many  a  poet  echoes  the  conceit.' 

'  •  •  •  'Tis  the  merry  nightingale 
That  crowds  and  hurries  and  precipitates 
With  thick,  fast  warble  his  delicious  notes, 
As  he  were  fearful  that  an  April  night 
Would  be  too  short  for  him  to  utter  forth 
His  love-chant,  and  disburthen  his  full  soul 
Of  all  its  music  !' 

Mr.  Mackail  alludes  to  Homer's  passage  as 'these 
miraculous  lines  in  the  Odyssey.'  I  give  his  beautiful 
version  of  them : 

1  Even  as  when  the  maid  of  Pandarus, 
The  greenwood  nightingale  melodious, 
Amid  the  thickened  leafage  sits  and  sings 
When  the  young  spring  is  waxing  over  us  ; 

1  Phaedrus  and  Seneca  have  luscinius. 

2  77  Penseroso.  3  P.  L.  iv.  603  ;  cf.  v.  41. 
4  The  Nightingale. 

54 


Philomela 

And  she  with  many  a  note  and  hurrying  trill 
Pours  forth  her  liquid  voice,  lamenting  still 
Her  own  son  Itylus,  King  Zethus'  child, 
Whom  long  ago  her  folly  made  her  kill.' 

Coleridge's  '  merry  nightingale '  is  found  in  an 
anonymous  poem,  formerly  attributed  to  Chaucer, 
The  Flower  and  the  Leaf: 

1  The  nightingale  with  so  mery  a  note 
Answered  him,  that  all  the  woode  rang.' 

Finally,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  be  able  to  quote  the 
new  Laureate l  at  his  best  in  Nightingales  : 

'  Alone,  aloud  in  the  raptured  ear  of  men 
We  pour  our  dark  nocturnal  secret ;  and  then, 

As  night  is  withdrawn, 
From  these  sweet-springing  meads  and  bursting  boughs 

of  May, 
Dream,  while  the  innumerable  choir  of  day 
Welcome  the  dawn.' 


§  12.  Merops,  Cycnus,  Ardea. 

Three  other  species  are  mentioned  in  the  Georgics. 
The  bee-eater  (iv.  14)  is  noticed  under  the  heading 
of  Bees,  and  there  is  nothing  to  add  to  what  the 
standard  ornithological  works  say  of  it. 

The  swan  (ii.  199)  '  is  without  any  doubt  the 
whooper  (Cycnus  musicus),  whose  voice  and  presence 
are  still  well  known  in  Italy  and  Greece.'2 

1  Robert  Bridges,  Shorter  Poems,  bk.  V.  xii. 

2  Warde  Fowler,  op.  cit.,  p.  238.  The  Aencid  contains  two 
fine  passages  about  this  bird  :  vii.  699-705  and  xi.  456-458. 

55 


Birds 

The   heron  (i.  364),  in  contrast  to  the  crane,   is 

described   as   soaring   above   the  clouds  to  avoid  a 

storm.     It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Virgil  had  ever 

seen  it  doing  so,  unless  he  had  stood  on  some  Alpine 

peak  which  took  him  above  the  clouds.     He  differs 

here   from   Aratus,   as   Keightley   points   out.     But 

Lucan  has  the  same  observation  in  the  same  kind  of 

context  (v.  553) : 

'  Quodque  ausa  volare 
Ardea  sublimis  pennae  confisa  natanti.' 

*  The  ancient  poets/  as  Keightley  says,  '  were  not 
very  solicitous  about  accuracy  in  these  matters.' 


56 


PART    III 

BEES 

'If  the  question  were  asked,  "  What  book  should 
first  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  beginner  in  api- 
culture to-day?"  no  wiser  choice  than  this  fourth 
book  of  the  Georgics  could  be  made ;  for  Virgil  goes 
direct  to  the  great  heart  of  the  matter,  which  is  the 
same  to-day  as  it  was  2,000  years  ago.  The  bee- 
keeper must  be  first  of  all  a  bee-lover,  or  he  will 
never  succeed ;  and  Virgil's  love  for  his  bees  shines 
through  his  book  from  beginning  to  end.' 

Thus  writes  a  modern  expert,  Mr.  Tickner 
Edwardes.  To  Maeterlinck  Virgil  is  the  only  one 
of  the  Greek  and  Roman  bee-keepers  worth  study- 
ing. He  condenses  all  that  may  be  learned,  and  it 
is  not  much,  from  older  writers.  Many  of  their 
superstitions  also  survive  in  him,  the  first  line  of 
the  book  containing  a  typical  example.  The  ancients 
thought  that  honey  was  gathered  from  honey-dew, 
which  is  really  a  secretion  of  aphides.1  Bees  will 
eat  it  greedily  when  nectar  is  scarce,  and  a  very 
little  spoils  the  taste  and  colour  of  the  best  honey. 

1  Digges,  however,  says  it  is  sometimes  exuded  direct  from 
leaves. 

57 


Bees 

Aristotle  allows  that  wax  is  gathered  from  flowers,1 
but  traces  honey  to  the  same  source  as  Virgil : 
yLyverat  Krjpiov  fxev  ef  avO&v  .  .  .  piXi  Be  to  ttlittov 
€k  rod  dipos.2  Apparently  it  was  believed  that  honey- 

i       dew  fell  from  the  skies  on  to  the  leaves  of  trees. 

I       Virgil    alludes   to    it    in   Georgic  i.   131    ('  mellaque 
^7V^    '      decussit   foliis1),   and  in  Eclogue  iv.  30  ('  Et  durae 
quercus  sudabunt  roscida  mella  '). 

Pliny  speculates  about  it  at  considerable  length. 
Even  Gilbert  White3  is  in  error,  explaining  it  as  the 
evaporated  effluvia  of  flowers,  which  are  drawn  up  in 
hot  weather,  and  fall  again  at  night.  He  notes  that 
it  is  '  very  grateful '  to  bees. 

The  first  five  lines  of  Georgic  iv.  remind  us  of 
Michelet's4  dictum  that  'the  bee-hive  is  the  veritable 
Athens  of  the  insect  wrorld.'  Origen,5  the  great  Greek 
theologian,  has  preserved  a  good  comment :  '  Bees 
have  a  leader,  with  a  train  of  courtiers  and  servants, 
and  wars  and  victories  and  captures  of  the  vanquished, 
and  cities  and  suburbs  {TrpoTrbXeis),  and  relays  of 
workmen,  and  lawsuits  against  the  idle  and  vicious.' 
Lines  8-35  contain  practical  precepts  of  the 
highest  excellence.  Many  of  Virgil's  directions  are 
still  golden  rules  for  every  bee-keeper.  It  is  quite 
true  that  '  pabula  venti  ferre  domum  prohibent '  (9). 

1  Shakespeare  has  the  same  mistake  (2  Henry  iv.  4-5) : 

•  Our  thighs  pack'd  with  wax,  our  mouths  with  honey.' 
Even  Buffon  mistook  pollen  for  wax. 

2  H.  A.v.  22-4.  3  Letter  LXIV.,  to  Barrington. 

4  The  Insect,  bk.  III.,  c.  viii. 

5  Origen  contra  Celsum,  iv. 

58 


Georgic  iv.    i — 20 

A  heavy-laden  bee  may  be  blown  into  the  grass 
beiow  the  hive  and  be  unable  to  rise,  especially  if 
the  wind  be  cold.  Bees  are  also  easily  drowned 
(cf.  29),  but  water  is  needed  for  making  honey,  and 
for  feeding  the  young  bees,  who  die  if  they  get  no 
water.  Hence  water-carrying  is  part  of  the  regular 
business  of  the  hive.  The  '  flumina  libant '  of  line  54 
is  not  true,  for  bees  do  not  drink  on  the  wing ;  but 
bee-gardens  usually  have  some  regular  watering- 
place,  where  bees  may  be  seen  drinking  in  thousands 
in  the  early  morning  or  late  afternoon.  If  the 
stream  or  pool  which  Virgil  prescribes  be  absent, 
modern  bee-keepers  use  some  such  device  as  a  jar 
of  water  inverted  on  a  saucer.  The  Isle  of  Wight 
bees  are  said  to  be  fond  of  sea-water. 

Shade  (20)  is  useful  in  hot  weather,  and  also  in 
winter,  for  too  much  sun  in  winter  will  lure  the  bees 
out  to  die  of  cold. 

The  'picti  lacerti '  (13)  are  the  green  lizards  of 
Italy.  The  bee-eater  {Merops  apiaster)1  is  a  rare 
visitor  to  England,  but  a  well-known  spring  migrant 
in  Southern  Europe.  The  swallow  tribe  do  little 
harm,  only  catching  bees  occasionally.  In  the  well- 
known  line,2  '  The  swallow  stopt  as  he  hunted  the  fly,' 
Tennyson  originally  wrote  '  bee/  but  altered  it  later.3 
Webster  says  he  has  seen  the  bees  drive  swallows 
away.  But  the  swallow  is  not  guiltless.  Chaucer4  calls 

1  In  modern  Greek  the  pipo-ty-  is  called  the  ne\t.cr(ro(pdyos  or 
fieXio-aovpyos.  Aristotle  mentions  the  alytdaWos  (titmouse), 
xe\i8cov,  and  fiipoyj/  among  the  enemies  of  bees. 

2  The  Poet's  Song.      3  Appendix  A,  §  3.      *  P.  of  Fowles^sZ- 

59 


Bees 

her  '  the  swalow,  mordrer  of  the  bees  small.'  Aelian  l 
has  an  interesting  note :  '  Bee-keepers  might  readily 
have  killed  the  swallow,  but  do  not  do  so,  for  they 
reverence  her  song :  they  are  content  to  prevent  her 
from  building  her  nest  near  the  hives.' 

Among  the  '  aliae  volucres '  may  be  mentioned  the 
woodpecker,  the  sparrow,  the  robin,  the  red-backed 
shrike,  and  at  least  two  kinds  of  titmouse.  Ducks 
and  fowls  will  also  eat  bees  if  allowed.  May, 
Addison,  and  Trapp  translate  '  meropes '  '  wood- 
peckers,' and  Dryden  has  '  the  titmouse  and  the 
pecker's  hungry  brood.'  This  is  bad  translating} 
but  good  natural  history.  The  green  woodpecker 
(Gecinus  viridis)  is  common  in  Italy.  The  great  and 
blue  tits  have  a  habit  of  tapping  on  the  entrance- 
board  of  the  hive  in  frosty  weather,  and  snapping  up 
the  bees  as  they  come  to  see  what  is  the  matter. 
This  can  be  prevented,  but  the  capture  of  a  queen- 
bee  on  her  nuptial  flight  is  a  contingency  against 
which  no  bee-keeper  can  provide. 

The  '  reges '  of  line  21  raises  a  question  which  was 
not  settled  till  the  sixteenth  century.  Among  the 
ancients  the  queen-bee  was  universally  supposed  to 
be  a  male.  Xenophon,2  however,  in  one  passage 
speaks  of  rj  iv  tgS  o-jjLTjvei  rjyeficov  /jbeXcrra.  Writers  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  describe  her 
variously  as  a  king  or  queen,  but  only  in  the  sense 
of  ruler  of  the  hive.  The  word  chosen  depended 
largely,  according  to  Tickner  Edwardes,3  on  the  sex 

1  i.  58.  2  Oecon.  vii.  17. 

3  Lore  of  the  Honey-Bee,  ch.  iii. 
60 


Georgic  iv.   21 — 33 

of  the  reigning  sovereign  of  the  country.  'Thus 
Rusden  very  wisely  discarded  the  notion  of  a  queen- 
bee  when  he  had  to  deal  with  Charles  II.  Butler, 
perhaps  the  most  learned  of  the  mediaeval  writers  on 
the  honey-bee,  as  astutely  forebore  to  mention  the 
word  king,  his  book  being  published  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne.  He  calls  it  The  Feminine  Monarchic, 
but  seems  to  have  no  more  suspected  the  truth  that 
the  large  bee  was  really  the  mother  of  the  whole 
colony  than  any  of  his  predecessors.'  The  sex  was 
discovered  by  Swammerdam,  the  great  Dutch  nat- 
uralist (1637-1680).  He  also  discovered  that  the 
queen  does  not  lead  or  govern,  but  is  simply  the 
mother  of  the  colony.  The  Germans  wisely  call  her 
the  Mutterbiene. 

Modern  beemen  are  not  proud  of  the  '  prima 
examina  .  .  .  vere  suo '  (21).  Indeed,  their  great 
object  is  to  prevent  natural  swarming,  and  to  bring 
it  about  artificially  as  needed.  The  old  adage,  '  a 
swarm  in  May  is  worth  a  load  of  hay,'  is  quite  out 
of  date. 

The  context  suggests  that '  ludetque  favis,'  etc.  (22), 
refers  to  the  buzzing  cloud  of  bees  before  the  swarm 
settles ;  but  drones  and  young  workers  employed  at 
home  take  daily  air  and  exercise. 

Virgil's  hives  are  of  two  kinds.  '  Corticibus '  (33) 
means  not  simply  bark,  but  the  bark  of  the  cork-tree, 
as  we  learn  from  Columella.1  Cork  hives,  either 
natural  or  artificial,  are  mentioned  also  in  Georgic 
ii.  453.     Those   of   woven  osiers   are  probably  the 

1  ix.  6. 
61 


Bees 

ancestors  of  our  straw  *  skeps,'  discarded  now  as 
permanent  hives  by  all  up-to-date  apiarists.  The 
natural  home  of  the  bee  is  described  in  line  44. 
1  Effossis  latebris '  (42)  is  an  error.  The  honey-bee 
does  not  excavate  for  herself.1  Her  natural  home 
is  a  hollow  tree ;  but  in  Palestine  the  wild  bees  hive 
in  precipitous  rocks.  In  South  Africa  they  sometimes 
use  an  old  ant-bear's  or  porcupine's  earth,  and  in 
India  combs  are  hung  from  the  branch  of  a  tree. 
The  domestic  bees  of  Palestine  are  kept  in  wicker 
or  earthenware  cylinders  plastered  with  cowdung, 
and  stopped  at  each  end  with  it,  except  for  a  few 
holes.  Earthenware  cylinders  are  used  in  Cyprus, 
and  in  Africa  hollow  logs  hung  in  thorn-trees.  Rock 
bees  are  mentioned  again  by  Virgil  in  Aeneid  xii.  587, 
and  by  Homer  in  Iliad  ii.  87. 

The  *  angustos  aditus '  (35)  can  be  adjusted  in 
modern  hives  to  suit  the  season,  but  even  in  the 
height  of  summer  they  must  not  be  large.  Not  only 
must  enemies  be  excluded  as  far  as  is  possible,  but  also 
the  bees  must  to  some  extent  be  allowed  to  regulate 
the  temperature  themselves.  If  the  officious  bee-master 
pierce  air-holes  in  the  walls  of  the  hive,  the  bees  will 
spend  the  night  in  stopping  them  up  again,  as  Virgil 
indicates.  Ventilation  is  done  through  the  entrance 
by  the  fanning  bees,  which  fan  the  spent  air  out  and 
the  fresh  air  in  with  their  wings 2  The  current  of 
air  thus  created  by  a  populous  hive  is  strong  enough 
on  a  warm  night  to  extinguish  the  flame  of  a  candle. 

Temperature  is  altered  at  will  from  about  8o°  to 
1  Appendix  B,  §  12.  2  Appendix  A,  §  4. 

62 


Georgic  iv.   34 — 47 

950  F.  The  latter  is  only  needed  for  the  secretion 
of  wax.  But  wax  is  not  used  for  plastering  '  spira- 
menta.'  Virgil  is  more  accurate  when  he  speaks  of 
*  fucus '  being  used  for  this  purpose.  '  Floribus,' 
however,  is  out  of  place.  '  Fucus  '  obviously  means 
propolis,  a  resinous  substance  gathered  chiefly  from 
poplars,  chestnuts,  and  pines.  It  is  very  tenacious 
and  dries  hard.  Bees  carry  it,  like  pollen,  on  their 
hind-legs,  and  will  use  it  for  all  repairs  other  than 
comb-building,  and  to  cover  over  slugs  or  any  refuse 
too  heavy  to  be  removed  from  the  hive.1 

It  is  true  that  honey  is  affected  to  some  extent  by 
heat  and  cold.  Honey  candies  or  crystallizes  with 
cold,  but  this  is  a  proof  of  its  purity,  and  it  can  be 
melted,  if  desired,  with  hot  water  (cf.  36).  Honey 
that  is  adulterated  with  glucose  will  not  crystallize. 
Combs  will  stand  a  very  high  temperature,  but  in  the 
hot  summer  of  191 1  could  hardly  be  handled  safely, 
and  the  honey  was  apt  to  run  from  them.2 

Yew-trees  (47)  are  also  mentioned  in  Eclogue 
ix.  30  as  injurious  to  bees.  This  is  a  doubtful 
question.  Burnt  crabs,  a  primitive  remedy  for  burns 
and  scalds,  according  to  Martyn,  and  a  medical  manure 
for  certain  trees,  would  be  offensive  to  bees  for  the 
same  reason  as  the  '  palus'  and  the  'caenum.'  Bees 
are  clean  creatures  and  dislike  strong  smells. 

1  The  South  African  native  uses  it  for  fixing  the  iron  spike 
of  his  assegai  into  his  shaft. 

2  The  heat  of  this  wonderful  summer  is  said  to  have  played 
havoc  in  hives  not  protected  from  the  sun,  or  containing 
adulterated  comb-foundation.  Naturally-built  combs,  such  as 
Virgil  deals  with,  would  suffer  most  from  heat. 

63 


Bees 

By  lines  50  and  64  the  question  is  raised  whether 
bees  can  hear.  Aristotle1  doubts  it :  eart  fievroi  a&tjXov 
oXft)?  el  aKovovaiv.  Curiously  enough,  this  question 
is  still  unsettled.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence 
on  both  sides.  Gilbert  White2  quotes  line  50  and 
observes :  '  This  wild  and  fanciful  assertion  will 
hardly  be  admitted  by  the  philosophers  of  these 
days,  especially  as  they  all  now  seem  agreed  that 
insects  are  not  furnished  with  any  organs  of  hearing 
at  all.'  He  adds  that  bees  thrive  well  at  Selborne, 
where  the  echoes  are  very  strong,  and  that  he  has 
tried  his  own  bees  through  a  speaking-trumpet '  with 
such  an  exertion  of  voice  as  would  have  hailed  a  ship 
at  the  distance  of  a  mile,'  but  without  producing  any 
effect  on  them  whatsoever. 

Lord  Avebury3  tried  a  violin,  a  dog-whistle,  a  shrill 
pipe,  and  some  tuning-forks,  and  also  tried  to  teach 
bees  to  find  honey  with  the  help  of  a  musical-box, 
but  with  the  same  result.  Most  authorities  agree 
that  the  '  tinnitus '  and  '  cymbala,'  the  door-key  and 
warming-pan  of  to-day,  make  no  difference  at  all. 
On  the  other  hand,  bees  are  musical  creatures,  and 
express  their  emotions  through  a  variety  of  sounds.4 
Queen-bees  may  be  heard  piping  to  their  imprisoned 
rivals  and  being  answered  by  them.  This  suggests 
that  they  have  some  power  of  hearing,  and  Lord 

1  H.  A.  ix.  40. 

2  Letter  XXXVIIL,  to  Barrington. 

3  Lubbock,  Ants,  Bees,  and  Wasps,  pp.  290,  421. 

4  T.  Edwardes  (Lore,  c.  x.)  says  they  have  a  compass  of  at 
least  an  octave  and  a  half.    Cf.  Cowan,  Honey  Bee,  c.  xiv. 

64 


Georgic  iv.  48 — 61 

Avebury  does  not  deny  it.1  Mr.  Richard  Kearton, 
commenting  on  Gilbert  White,  claims  to  have  proved 
that  grasshoppers  can  find  each  other  by  sound  alone. 
Mr.  T.  E.  Page  says :  '  It  seems  certain  that  bees  dis- 
like noise,  and  an  apiary  situated  near  mills,  smithies, 
or  other  noisy  workshops,  is  seldom  prosperous.' 
But  he  gives  no  authorities  for  the  statement. 

According  to  Cotton,2  Siberian  bees  are  called  to 
and  from  their  pasture  with  a  whistle,  which  he  says 
is  an  ancient  practice  in  the  East.  He  compares 
Isaiah  vii.  18  :  '  The  Lord  shall  hiss  for  the  fly  .  .  . 
and  for  the  bee.'  The  Hebrew  for  '  bee '  is  nnin^ 
(Deborah),  which  Cotton  and  J.  G.  Wood  translate 
'  She  that  speaks.'  The  new  Oxford  Hebrew  Lexicon 
gives  no  support  to  this  view. 

Tickner  Edwardes3  asserts  that  the  most  super- 
ficial acquaintance  with  the  life  of  a  hive  must 
convince  anyone  that  bees  hear  acutely.  It  would 
be  well  if  he  had  studied  the  question  less  super- 
ficially himself.  The  most  that  can  be  said  in  the 
present  state  of  knowledge  is  that  it  is  an  open  one. 
Probably  bees  have  some  sense  of  hearing,  or  some 
faculty  that  corresponds  to  it,  but  as  to  its  nature 
and  range  we  are  very  much  in  the  dark.4 

Mr.  T.  W.  Cowan,  one  of  our  greatest  living 
authorities,  skilfully  avoids  expressing  any  opinion 
in  his  scientific  work  on  the  bee. 

Lines  50-61  are  a  beautiful  piece  of  description. 
We  find  echoes  of  it  in  Shakespeare,5  whose  bees 

1  Appendix  A,  §  4.      2  My  Bee-Book,  p.  338.      3  Lore,  ch.  x. 
*  Appendix  B,  §  13.  5  Henry  V.  i.  2. 

65  F 


Bees 

1  make  boot  upon  the  summer's  velvet  buds,**1  and  in 
Gray's  Ode  on  the  Spring: 

*  The  insect  youth  are  on  the  wing, 
Eager  to  taste  the  honied  spring 
And  float  amid  the  liquid  noon  : 
Some  lightly  o'er  the  current  skim.' 

Bees  usually  swarm  on  a  fine  day,  between  the 
hours  of  ten  and  four,  but  young  queens  will  some- 
times lead  out  a  swarm  in  any  weather  and  at  any 
hour.  They  do  not  seek  water,  but  the  branch  of 
a  tree  is  the  usual  settling-place  for  a  swarm,  as  is 
well  described  at  the  end  of  the  book  in  lines  557- 
558.  A  great  many  herbs  were  formerly  used  for 
1  medicating '  a  hive.  Cotton  mentions  mint,  lavender, 
thyme,  balm,  savory,  marjoram,  fennel,  hyssop, 
mallows,  and  bean-top.  Hives  were  also  damped 
with  mead  or  beer,  or  salt  and  water.  Balm  is  the 
*  melisphyllum  '  of  this  passage. 

Milton's  bees  (Paradise  Lost,  i.  772) — 

1  On  the  smoothed  plank, 
The  suburb  of  their  straw-built  citadel, 
New  rubb'd  with  balm,  expatiate  and  confer 
Their  state  affairs.' 

Virgil's  battle  of  the  bees  seems  to  be  a  poetical 
fusion  of  two  distinct  facts.  The  one  is  that  bees 
sometimes  rob  other  hives,  especially  in  autumn, 
when  fierce  conflicts  ensue.  The  other  is  that  the 
reigning  queen  will  kill  a  rival  if  she  can.  With 
regard  to  robbing,  strong  stocks  may  be  trusted  to 

1  '  Flores '  is  more  accurate  than  '  velvet  buds.' 
66 


Georgic  iv.   62 — 82 

take  care  of  themselves ;  but  when  once  a  colony  of 
robbers  has  sent  out  its  scouts  and  discovered  a 
weak  hive,  the  latter  is  soon  overcome,  unless  the 
bee-master  intervenes. 

The  description  of  the  trumpet-like  voice  is  especi- 
ally applicable  to  the  queen,  who  takes  no  part  in 
the  robber  battles,  but  reserves  her  sting  entirely  for 
royal  adversaries.  Maeterlinck1  compares  her  war- 
song  to  '  the  note  of  a  distant  trumpet  of  silver ;  so 
intense,  in  its  passionate  feebleness,  as  to  be  clearly 
audible,  in  the  evening  especially,  two  or  three  yards 
away  from  the  double  walls  of  the  most  carefully 
enclosed  hive.' 

A  similar,  but  deeper  and  less  clear,  note  is  uttered 
by  the  young  queens,  in  their  eagerness  to  escape  from 
their  cells  and  contest  the  supremacy. 

Swarming  frequently  follows  on  the  next  day,  and 
it  is  quite  possible  that  Virgil  has  lapsed  into  some 
of  the  phenomena  of  swarming  when  he  writes  of 
the  conflict  high  in  air  and  the  two  kings  (cf.  jj 
with  59). 

1  Spiculaque  exacuunt  rostris '  (74)  is  difficult  to 
translate  satisfactorily,  except  as  a  gross  error.  The 
most  probable  explanation  is  that  Virgil  misunder- 
stood the  cleaning  of  the  antennae  with  the  legs, 
which  is  part  of  every  bee's  toilet.  *  Insignibus  alis  ' 
is  equally  hard  to  justify  (82).  The  queen's  wings, 
though  slightly  longer  than  those  of  the  worker  or 
drone,  are  very  much  shorter  in  proportion  to  her 
body. 

1  Life  of  the  Bee,  §  73. 

67 


Bees 

The  throwing  of  dust  has  been  superseded  by 
mechanical  contrivances  by  which  bees  may  be  shut 
in  or  out  of  the  hive  as  desired.  But  a  garden 
syringe  is  sometimes  used  to  make  bees  settle  down. 
Cotton1  describes  how  he  vainly  tried  to  stop  a  fight 
by  throwing  dust,  '  and  read  them  the  passage  in 
Virgil,  which  makes  the  throwing  of  dust  in  the  air 
equivalent  to  the  Bees'  Riot  Act :  "  Hi  motus  ani- 
morum," '  etc. ;  80-81  are  a  poetical  fiction,  for  bees 
do  not  fight  on  the  wing. 

The  passage  which  follows  contains  a  description 
of  two  distinct  varieties  of  the  honey-bee.  '  Due- 
tores  '  is,  of  course,  a  misnomer.  But  this  does  not 
affect  the  general  sense  of  the  passage,  for  the  '  ita 
corpora  plebis '  of  line  95  makes  it  clear  that  Virgil 
is  thinking  of  the  whole  colony,  which  appears  to  be 
a  mixed  one,  or  one  that  has  become  mixed  through 
a  fight.  The  '  turpes  '  may  be  either  our  common 
black  bee  (Apis  mellifica),  or  the  Carniolan  bee,  a 
native  of  Austria,  which  much  resembles  it.  In  any 
case,  Virgil's  condemnation  is  unjust.  The  brightly- 
coloured  bee,  which  he  prefers,  is  undoubtedly  the 
Italian  or  Ligurian  variety,  imported  into  England 
in  1859,  and  a  great  favourite  with  many  apiarists. 
It  is  the  *  golden-girdled '  bee  of  modern  poets, 
handsome  and  hard-working.  In  1887,  according 
to  Harrison,2  Italians  beat  blacks  by  quite  25  per 
cent.  Cowan  speaks  highly  of  them,  and  thinks  that 
their  introduction  has  done  much  to  improve  our 
native  race  by  new  blood.  T.  Edwardes,  on  the  other 
1  Op.  cit,  p.  320.  2  Book  of  the  Honey-Bee. 

68 


Georgic  iv.  83 — 102 

hand,  regards  them  as  undesirable  aliens,  nervous, 
irritable,  and  prone  to  disease.  There  is  much  to  be 
said  for  his  view.  It  may  be  that  Apis  mellifica  lig- 
ustica  is  not  well  suited  to  the  English  climate. 
The  deadly  Isle  of  Wight  disease  has  been  laid  to 
her  charge  as  a  visitor  from  the  Continent,  where 
the  disease  is  well  known.  Virgil  has  allowed  him- 
self some  poetical  hyperbole  in  describing  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  varieties,  but  the  black  bee  is 
more  hairy,  and  comparatively  sombre  and  dull  in 
appearance ;  while  the  Ligurian  is  lighter  coloured, 
and  has  three  distinct  yellow  rings  round  the 
abdomen. 

'Pretties'  (101)  is  the  right  word  for  the  ancient 
process,  which  is  again  alluded  to  in  140.  The 
honey  was  first  drained,  then  squeezed  or  pressed 
out.  Hence  '  cogere  pressis  mella  favis '  (140). 
Modern  apiarists  use  a  honey-extractor  by  which 
the  comb  is  emptied,  and  may  be  returned  uninjured 
to  the  hive.  The  mixture  of  honey  and  wine  alluded 
to  in  102  is  the  '  mulsum  '  of  Horace,  and  resembles 
the  mead  or  metheglin  of  England.  The  proportion 
of  honey  to  wine  or  other  fermented  liquor  varied,1 
and  still  varies.  Cotton  gives  Queen  Elizabeth's 
recipe  for  metheglin,  of  which  she  was  very  fond. 

Tickner    Edwardes   distinguishes   three   kinds   of 

1  According  to  Pliny  xi.  15,  it  was  composed  of  two  parts 
of  wine  and  one  of  honey.  Mead  is,  properly  speaking,  simply 
fermented  honey  and  water,  metheglin  being  a  spiced  form  of 
the  same  liquor.  Dryden  translates  102  :  '  And  with  old 
Bacchus  new  Metheglin  join.' 

69 


Bees 

liquor  brewed  from  honey  in  Anglo-Saxon  times. 
It  may  generally  be  seen  and  tasted  to-day  at  agri- 
cultural and  horticultural  shows,  but  cannot  be  sold 
without  a  licence.  The  flavour  is  excellent.  '  Mul- 
sum '  is  also  alluded  to  in  Georgic  i.  344:  '  Miti 
dilue  Baccho.' 

Line  103  seems  to  refer  to  *  swarming  fever,' 
which  is  not  a  disease,  but  a  propensity  which  gives 
much  trouble  to  the  beeman  of  to-day,  who  aims  at 
abolishing  natural  swarming  entirely.  Excessive 
swarming  weakens  the  old  stock,  interferes  with 
work,  and  may  lead  to  a  serious  loss  of  bees. 
Virgil's  remedy  may  be  either  clipping  or  pulling 
off  the  wings,  probably  the  latter.  Pliny  says :  '  Si 
quis  alam  ei  detruncet,  non  fugiet  examen,'  and 
Columella  has  '  ipse  spoliandus  est  alis.'  Dr.  Trapp1 
makes  merry  over  this  precept :  *  But  how  shall  one 
catch  them  ?  or  if  one  could  seize  them,  would  it  not 
be  difficult  to  hold  and  handle  them,  so  as  to  cut  their 
wings  ?  And  would  not  their  majesties  be  apt  to 
dart  out  their  royal  stings,  and  with  them  their  royal 
lives  ?'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  queen  may  be  safely 
handled,  for  she  will  not  use  her  sting  on  a  human 
being;2  though  Cowan3  has  proved  that  she  is  not 
only  able  to  do  so,  but  also  able  to  extract  her  sting 
much   more   easily  than   a   worker.     A  queen  that 

1  Martyn,  ad  loc. 

2  Aristotle  knew  this  :  ol  de  fiacriXets  icai  rjyefioves  e'xovo-i  fiev 
Ktvrpov,  aW  ov  Tinrrovai  :  dio  evioi  ovk  oiovrai  %X*lv  avrovs  (H.  A. 
V.   2l). 

3  The  Honey-Bee,  p.  81. 

70 


Georgic  iv.    103 — 109 

cannot  fly  cannot  be  impregnated  by  the  drone,  but 
after  impregnation  her  wings  may  be  clipped  if 
necessary.1  The  practice  is  not  usual,  but  not  un- 
known. Digges  gives  full  directions.  The  clipping 
can  be  done  on  the  comb  without  handling  the 
queen. 

Virgil  implies  that  the  hive  has  two  reigning 
sovereigns.  T.  Edwardes2  asserts  that  as  many  as 
five  queens3  have  been  known  to  share  a  single  hive, 
and  that  a  hive  with  more  than  one  queen  will  not 
swarm. 

Lines  107-108  are  not  literally  true,  but  a  swarm 
without  a  queen  will  soon  return  to  the  hive. 

The  '  croceis  floribus '  of  109  probably  means 
simply  '  coloured  flowers.'  There  would  be  no 
special  point  in  '  yellow.'  Lord  Avebury  has  proved 
that  the  bees  prefer  blue  to  any  other  colour.  But 
individual  bees  generally  confine  each  foraging 
journey  to  one  particular  kind  of  flower,  and  a  load 
of  pollen  may  frequently  be  traced  by  its  colour. 
1  The  deep  brown-gold  panniers  came  from  the  gorse- 
bloom ;  the  pure  snow-white  from  the  hawthorns ; 
the  vivid  yellow,  always  so  big  and  seemingly  so 
weighty,  had  been  filled  in  the  buttercup  meads. 
Now  and  again,  in  early  spring,  a  bee  would  come 
blundering  home  with  a  load  of  pallid  sea-green  hue. 
This  came  from  the  gooseberry  bushes.  And  later, 
in  summer,  when  the  poppies  began  to  throw  their 
scarlet  shuttles  in  the  corn,  many  of  these  cargoes 

1  Appendix  B,  §  14.  2  Lore,  ch.  vii. 

3  Button's  'later  observers'  said  five  or  six. 

71 


Bees 

would  be  of  a  rich  velvety  black.'1  Thus  writes 
Mr.  T.  Edwardes  in  his  chapter  on  '  A  Bee-man  of 
the  'Forties,'  a  '  Corycius  senex '  of  later  times. 

The   digression   on   gardening,  of  which  the  old 
Corycian  is  the  central  figure,  is  not  directly  con- 
cerned  with   bees,  but   the   number   of   honey   and 
pollen-yielding  blossoms  mentioned  in  it  can  hardly 
be  accidental.    Cotton  specially  mentions  cucumbers 
as  profiting  by  the  visits  of  bees,  which  indeed  are 
very  necessary  in  fruit-growing  districts,  to  fertilize 
the   blossoms.     The  Corycian's  garden  and   apiary 
owed  much  of  their  success  to  their  mutual  relation- 
ship.    The  narcissus  is  mentioned  again  in  160  as 
useful  for  comb-foundation.    Ivy  sometimes  provides 
a  late  harvest  in    October,  when   other  flowers  are 
dead.    Vervain,  if  Heyne  may  be  trusted,  was  '  apum 
causa  sata.'    Lilies  are  mentioned  in  Aeneid  vi.  709  as 
affording  pasture  for  bees.     Michelet  says  they  are 
fond  of  water-lilies.     The  poppy  occurs  in  the  quota- 
tion from  T.  Edwardes  above.     It  yields  abundant 
pollen.    Limes  are  great  favourites  with  bees.    Pears, 
sloes  (blackthorns),  and  fruit-trees  generally  are  sure 
to  be  musical  with  bees  when  in  bloom  (cf.  '  poma  ' 
134).     Pines  are  mentioned  also  in  112.     The  'uber- 
rima   pinus '     (141)    was    presumably    planted    for 
propolis,    but   also   for   pollen    from    the    ripe    male 
cones,  whence  the   epithet.     The  hyacinth  is  men- 
tioned again  with  the  lime  in  183. 

1  Apibus  fetis  '  (139)  is  hardly  consistent  with  what 


\ 


1  Bee-Master  of  Warrilow,  ch.  v. ;  cf.  Lore  of  Honey-Bee, 
ch.  iv. 

72 


Georgic  iv.    110 — 157 

Virgil  says  later  about  the  generation  of  bees.  But 
it  may  be  translated  loosely  as  '  parent-bees,'  with 
Papillon  and  Haigh.  Heyne  settles  the  difficulty 
with  '  apes  fetae  melle.'  But  the  context  is  against 
him. 

In  149  we  return  to  the  natural  history  of  bees. 
The  piece  of  mythology  which  introduces  it  rests  on 
the  assumption  that  bees  can  hear  the  *  cymbala '  of 
64,  which  there  is  good  reason  for  doubting. 

The  '  solae  '  of  153-5  leaves  out  the  ant  and  the 
wasp,  though  156-7  remind  us  of  the  '  inopi  metuens 
formica  senectae  '  of  Georgic  i.  186. 

In  the  making  and  administration  of  the  '  magnae 
leges  '  (154)  the  queen  counts  for  nothing.  All  is 
done  by  the  mind  or  spirit  of  the  hive,  that  mysterious 
influence  which  no  naturalist  has  quite  fathomed. 

*  The  mind  in  the  hive  is  the  collective  mind  of  the 
whole  colony,  apart  from  the  queen  and  drones — an 
hereditary,  communal  intellect  evolved  through  the 
ages,  the  sum  and  total  of  all  bee  experience  since 
the  world  of  bees  began.'1 

Despite  their  reverence  for  law,  no  maxim  is  more 
certain  than  that  bees  do  nothing  invariably.  Their 
originality  in  comb-building  is  noticed  below.  But 
it  is  equally  certain  that  a  bee  does  nothing  alone. 

*  Isolate  her,'  says  Maeterlinck,2  *  and  however 
abundant  the  food  or  favourable  the  temperature, 
she  will  expire  in  a  few  days,  not  of  hunger  or  cold, 
but  of  loneliness."  In  her  self-sacrifice  she  is  a  relic  of 

1  T.  Edwardes,  Lore,  ch.  v.  2  Op.  cit.,  §  7. 

73 


Bees 

the  Golden  Age  pictured  in  Georgic  i.  127.  ■  In  medium 
quaerere '  is  part  of  the  honey-bee's  nature ;  but 
whether  this  is  genuine  unselfishness,  or  merely  a 
useful  form  of  selfishness,  is  open  to  question.  Mr. 
Kay  Robinson1  thinks  that  '  each  individual  is  really 
working  independently,  obeying  the  imperative  in- 
stinct with  which  it  is  endowed  by  nature ;  and  the 
fact  that  its  work  dovetails  in  so  well  with  the  work 
of  the  other  members  of  the  community  is  due  to  the 
evolution  of  the  species  as  a  gregarious  insect.' 

Maeterlinck's  beautiful  book  would  not  have  been 
written  had  he  believed  this,  and  it  can  hardly  repre- 
sent the  whole  truth.  The  bee  is  far  too  wonderful  a 
creature  to  be  fully  accounted  for  by  such  a  theory. 
She  is,  even  more  than  man,  a  *  political  animal ';  and 
Virgil  was  not  far  wrong  when  he  clothed  her  with 
all  the  excellences  of  the  Roman  city-state. 

Such  phrases  as  *  foedere  pacto '  (158)  raise  again 
the  question  whether  she  has  any  real  sense  of  duty ; 
or  is  a  mere  automaton  in  the  hands  of  Nature.  But 
the  division  of  labour  is  a  fact.  It  is  regulated  by 
the  age  of  the  bee.  For  the  first  twelve  or  fourteen 
days  of  her  existence  the  worker-bee  is  employed  in 
the  hive.  During  this  period  her  '  milk  '  glands,  and 
wax-making  organs  a  little  later,  are  well  developed  ; 
while  after  her  first  month  of  life  both  are  greatly 
reduced.  As  soon  as  she  is  fit  for  foraging  she  carries 
pollen,  and  later  deserts  pollen  for  honey.  She  thus 
begins  life  as  a  nurse  and  ends  it  as  a  honey-bringer. 
The  *  grandaevis  oppida  curae,'  etc.,  of  lines  178-180 
1  Religion  of  Nature,  p.  137. 
74 


Georgic  iv.    158 — 160 

is  an  unfortunate  afterthought.  Virgil  has  fallen 
into  the  same  error  as  Aristotle,  who  is  quoted  in  all 
good  faith  by  Martyn  and  Conington.  The  *  shaggy' 
(Baaeicu)  are  really  the  young  bees  ;  the  Xeibrepcu  are 
the  older  bees,  worn  smooth  and  shiny  by  hard  work. 

The  famous  passage  in  Henry  V.  (i.  2)  is  utterly 
unscientific.  Page  quotes  it  in  full  as  '  the  best  illus- 
tration of  Virgil  and  the  best  commentary  on  him.' 
Literary  critics  do  not  always  discover  the  truth  in 
such  matters,  but  Professor  Walter  Raleigh1  is  an 
exception.  'The  famous  passage  on  the  bees  in 
Henry  V.  is  glittering  poetry ;  but  "  as  a  description 
of  a  hive,"  says  a  critic  of  knowledge  and  parts,  "  it 
is  utter  nonsense,  with  an  error  of  fact  in  every  other 
line,  and  instinct  throughout  with  a  total  misconcep- 
tion of  the  great  bee-parable."  Virgil  knew  some- 
thing of  the  bee  ;  Shakspeare  little  or  nothing.' 2 

With  '  narcissi  lacrimam '  many  commentators 
compare  Milton's  Lycidas: 

1  Daffodillies  fill  their  cups  with  tears.' 

Conington  suggests  that  Milton's  'tears'  refer  to 
rain  or  dew.  But  Milton  is  probably  echoing  Virgil, 
whose  reference  seems  to  be  either  to  the  story  of 
Narcissus3  or  to  a  mistake  of  primitive  naturalists. 
Narcissi  yield  pollen,  but  not  propolis,  a  substance 
which  has  already  been  explained,  and  is  here  well 
called  '  lentum  gluten.'     It  is  usually  gathered  from 

1  Shakespeare  (English  Men  of  Letters),  p.  37. 

2  Appendix  B,  §  15. 

3  So  Mr.  James  Rhoades  translates  it:  'Narcissus'  tear' 
(cf.  122). 

75 


Bees 

bads,  but  also  from  the  gum  that  exudes  from  the 
trunks  of  some  trees. 

'  Fundamina'  (161)  appears  to  mean  not  the  founda- 
tions of  the  comb,  but  the  propolis  by  which  it  is 
glued  to  the  hive.  The  '  tenaces  ceras '  are  the 
foundation,  as  modern  bee-keepers  understand  it. 
Artificial  comb-foundation  is  usually  supplied  now. 
It  saves  the  bees  time,  and  by  it  the  number  of 
drone-cells  can  to  some  extent  be  regulated  at  the 
discretion  of  the  bee-master.  Cowan  estimates  that 
at  least  one-half  the  work  of  the  bees  is  saved  by 
this  excellent  invention.  It  also  ensures  straighter 
and  more  uniform  combs.  '  Suspendunt '  is  the 
right  word,  for  bees  build  from  the  top  downwards. 
But  they  have  been  known  to  build  upwards  when 
no  other  way  was  possible.  In  line  57  '  excudunt ' 
is  applied  to  '  ceras,'  and  '  tenax '  is  transferred  to 
the  honey.  Probably  Virgil  was  quite  unaware  that 
wax  is  a  secretion  of  the  bee.  This  was  discovered 
by  Hiiber.  From  ten  to  seventeen  pounds  of  honey 
are  consumed  in  the  production  of  one  pound  of 
wax,  which  oozes  out  in  plates  or  scales  from  the 
'  wax  pockets  '  on  the  under  side  of  the  abdomen. 
To  secrete  it  the  bees  have  to  obtain  a  high  tempera- 
ture (870  to  98°  F.,  Cowan)  by  close  clustering. 

'  Educunt  fetus1  (163)  suggests  that  the  young 
bees  are  taught  by  their  elders  to  forage.  This  is 
not  true,  but  it  appears  that  they  need  experience. 
T.  Edwardes1  says  they  may  be  seen  searching  the 
most  unlikely  places,  even  the  leaves  of  a  plant 
1  Lore,  ch.  xiii. 

76 


Georgic  iv.    1 6 1  — 169 

instead  of  its  flowers,  and  begin  by  making  a  suc- 
cession of  blunders.  Nectar  (164)  is,  properly  speak- 
ing, the  pure  product  of  the  flower  before  it  is 
converted  into  honey  by  the  stomach  of  the  bee. 
Sentinel  bees  (165)  are  always  on  duty,  day  and 
night,  except  in  winter. 

The  sentinels  are  not  the  same  bees  that  perform 
the  other  tasks  assigned  in  166-168,1  and  probably 
this  is  Virgil's  meaning,  as  Conington  and  Page 
suppose.  If  so,  most  of  the  translators  are  wrong, 
but  Mr.  Mackail  is  an  exception.  The  drones  are 
not  expelled,  as  a  rule,  till  August,  when  they  all 
either  die  of  starvation  or  are  massacred  by  the 
workers.  Till  then  they  are  allowed  to  enjoy  life, 
and  are  partly  fed  by  the  workers ;  for  a  drone  will 
die  in  three  days  if  deprived  of  the  rich  chyle-food 
which  was  supplied  to  him  as  a  larva.  Drones  are 
said  to  be  useless,  except  for  breeding  purposes,2  and 
even  then  only  about  one  in  a  thousand  has  the  oppor- 
tunity, unless  their  number  is  strictly  limited  by  the 
bee-master;  hence  the  character  for  idleness  which 
the  drone  has  acquired,  and  the  quaint  speculations 
about  him  in  old  writers.  Virgil's  references  to  him 
are  very  cautious  (cf.  244).  In  this  he  shows  himself 
the  superior  of  many  later  writers.  Even  Martyn 
describes  the  drones  as  '  a  sort  of  bees  without  stings, 

1  But  the  whole  or  greater  number  will  act  as  sentinels  if 
necessary.  Lord  Avebury  found  the  same  bees  doing  sentry- 
duty  day  after  day  (op.  cil.,  p.  289). 

2  But  probably  they  help  to  keep  up  the  warmth  of  the  hive, 
especially  when  wax  is  being  made. 

77 


Bees 

which  do  not  assist  the  others  in  their  labour.  .  .  . 
Some  affirm  that  the  drones  are  the  males.'  Heyne 
writes :  '  Dronen,  apes  maiores  iis  qui  mel  faciunt,' 
and  follows  this  with  a  long  quotation  from  Colu- 
mella (ix.  15.  1),  which  very  nearly  arrives  at  the 
truth :  '  Verumtamen  ad  procreationem  sobolis  con- 
ferre  aliquid  hi  fuci  videntur,  insidentes  seminibus, 
quibus  apes  figurantur.' 

Sir  J.  More  in  1707  was  right  as  far  as  he  went, 
and  had  no  doubt  of  it :  '  The  Drone  is  a  gross, 
stingless  Bee,  that  spendeth  his  time  in  idleness  ;  yet 
there  is  such  a  necessary  use  of  him,  that  without  him 
the  Bee  cannot  be :  it  is  the  opinion  of  some  that  he 
is  made  of  a  Honey  Bee,  which  is  even  as  likely  as 
that  a  dwarf,  having  his  guts  pulled  out,  should 
become  a  giant.  The  truth  is,  the  Drone  is  of  the 
same  species  with  the  Honey  Bee,  but  of  a  different 
sex,  and  by  whose  masculine  virtue  and  natural 
heat  the  Honey  Bee  secretly  conceiveth '  {England's 
Interest :  or,  The  Gentleman  and  Farmer's  Friend, 
ch.  vi.).  T.  Edwardes1  quotes  an  old  writer,  who  is 
at  once  true  to  facts,  and  an  excellent  illustrator  of 
Virgil's  allusions  :  '  A  grosse  Hive-Bee  without  sting, 
which  hath  always  been  reputed  a  greedy  lozell :  for 
howsoever  he  brave  it  with  his  round  velvet  cap,  his 
side  gowne,  his  full  paunch,  and  his  lowd  voice ;  yet 
he  is  but  an  idle  companion,  living  by  the  sweat  of 
others'  brows.  For  he  worketh  not  at  all,  either  at 
home  or  abroad,  and  yet  spendeth  as  much  'as  two 
labourers  :  you  shall  never  find  his  maw  without  a 
1  Lore,  ch.  iii. 

78 


Georgia  iv.   170 — 179 

good  drop  of  the  purest  nectar.  In  the  heat  of  the 
day  he  flieth  abroad,  aloft,  and  about,  and  that  with 
no  small  noise,  as  though  he  would  doe  some  great 
act :  but  it  is  onely  for  his  pleasure,  and  to  get  him  a 
stomach,  and  then  returns  he  presently  to  his  cheere.' 

It  should  be  allowed,  however,  that  his  flights 
abroad  are  also  to  look  for  a  queen. 

The  simile  which  begins  in  line  170  ought  not  to 
need  the  solemn  condemnation  of  some  commen- 
tators and  the  elaborate  apologies  of  others.  Virgil 
apologizes  sufficiently  for  it  in  176-178.  The  com- 
parison was  never  meant  to  be  pressed,  and  minute 
criticism  is  out  of  place.  As  Page  remarks,  Virgil 
would  thoroughly  have  enjoyed  reading  the  graver 
commentators  on  some  of  his  work. 

*  Munire  favos'  (179),  in  spite  of  Conington, 
Heyne,  and  others,  had  better  be  understood  liter- 
ally of  sealing  the  full  honey-combs,  rather  than  as 
merely  synonymous  with  '  fingere  tecta.'  '  Favus ' 
is  the  same  word  as  in  141,  and  does  not  keep  up 
the  metaphor  of  a  town.  '  Multa  nocte '  ('  late  at 
night ')  is  criticized  by  Keightley  and  Conington  as 
inaccurate.  Bees  do  not  usually  leave  the  hive  after 
nightfall,  but  on  light  July  nights  may  be  heard 
working  in  lime-trees,  and  have  even  been  known  to 
swarm  at  night,  if  report  be  true.  l  Crura  thymo 
plenae '  cannot  be  excused  as  a  poetical  hyperbole. 
Thyme1   and    wild    thyme   (*  serpullum,'    31)   yield 

1  Varro  (iii.  16.  n)  speaks  of  a  thyme-garden  of  one  acre 
near  Falerii  which  produced  at  least  10,000  sesterces  a  year 
(;£ioo)  in  honey. 

79 


Bees 

honey,  not  pollen ;  and  honey  is  not  carried  in  the 
hairy  '  pollen-basket '  on  the  hind-legs,  but  in  the 
honey  sac.1  They  are  favourite  food -plants,  as 
Virgil's  frequent  allusions  testify.  In  Eclogue  v.  77 
and  169  of  this  book  thyme  is  chosen  as  the  chief  of 
all.  In  112  the  bee-keeper  is  directed  to  plant  it 
in  his  garden.  Of  the  other  plants  and  trees  men- 
tioned here,  limes  and  hyacinths  were  found  in  the 
old  Corycian's  garden.  Willow,  says  T.  Edwardes, 
provides  the  earliest  nectar  in  Southern  England. 
Crocus  performs  the  same  service  with  pollen. 
Cassia  is  mentioned  also  in  30  of  this  book,  and 
in  Georgic  ii.  213,  where  it  is  linked  with  '  rorem ' 
(rosemary).  '  Rorem1  is  spoken  of  in  Eclogue  v.  yy 
as  food  for  *  cicadae ' ;  but  there  it  is  simply  '  dew,' 
and  here  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Virgil  means 
'rorem  maris.'  In  ii.  434  willows2  are  mentioned 
with  broom  as  '  pabula  melli.'  Brooms,  like  gorse, 
yield  pollen. 

■  Pinguem  tiliam '  (183)  has  given  the  commen- 
tators some  trouble.  Heyne  says  :  '  a  melle  riorum 
et  foliorum,  quod  exudant,  glutini  apum  idoneum.' 
Conington,  probably  copying  him,  says:  'called 
"  pinguem  "  from  the  gluten  on  its  leaves.1  Nettle- 
ship  and  Haverfield  have  let  this  stand.  Page  obedi- 
ently quotes    Conington.      Mr.    Rhoades   translates 

1  Milton  makes  the  same  mistake  : 

1  While  the  bee  with  honied  thigh 
That  at  her  flowery  work  doth  sing.' 

(77  Penseroso). 

2  For  willow,  cf.  Eclogue  i.  54. 

^80 


Georgic  iv.    180 — 194 

'  glue-yielding  limes,'  doubtless  misled  by  so  goodly 
a  company.  Keightley,  with  more  sense,  says 
'  probably  on  account  of  the  honey-dew  that  lay  on 
it/  This  may  be  right,  but  what  more  natural 
epithet  could  Virgil  have  chosen  for  such  a  favourite 
source  of  honey  as  a  lime-tree  in  flower  ?  '  A  melle 
florum  '  is  quite  enough  (cf.  14  and  118). 

With  regard  to  the  rest  and  sleep  of  the  bees 
(189-190),  it  is  doubtful  if  they  ever  really  sleep, 
even  in  the  coldest  winter.  T.  Edwardes  compares 
the  sound  of  a  '  sleeping '  hive  to  the  angry  roar  of 
the  sea.  Hibernation  is  only  partial,  for  warm  sunny 
days  will  always  lure  bees  out.  Cleansing  flights 
are  needed  about  once  a  month,  for  the  worker-bee, 
when  in  health,  has  the  power  of  retaining  the  faeces, 
which  are  never  voided  in  the  hive. 

*  Siletur  in  noctem '  is  true  enough  of  a  small 
stock,  even  in  summer,  but  '  sopor  suus,'  the  needful, 
well-earned  vrjSvfjuos  1/777/0?,  sounds  beautiful  and 
probable,  and  that  is  all  we  can  dare  to  say.1 

'  The  fact  of  bees  ballasting  themselves  with 
stones,'2  as  Conington  calls  it  (194),  is  a  pure  fiction. 
Bees  are  accomplished  aeronauts,  able  to  fly  back- 
wards and  stop  when  they  will,  their  four  wings  and 
flexible  abdomen  serving  every  purpose.  Anyone 
may  verify  this  by  standing  near  a  hive,  and  watching 
the  bees  arriving  and  departing.  Magnified  to  the 
size  of  a  sparrow,  their  feats  would  be  marvellous  in 
the   extreme.     Cotton  discovered  that  a  bee  could 

1  Appendix  A,  §  4. 

2  This  mistake  is  found  in  Aristotle  {H.  A.  ix.  40). 

8l  G 


Bees 

balance  with  only  one  leg  loaded.  Can  it  be  that 
Virgil  or  Aristotle  observed  bees  carrying  dead 
larvae  or  pupae  or  refuse  away  from  the  hive  (as 
they  regularly  do),  and  mistook  these  for  small 
stones  ? 

The  belief  in  the  spontaneous  generation  of  bees, 

more  fully  expounded  by  Aristotle  and  Pliny,  has  a 

foundation  in  fact  which  no  commentator  seems  to 

have  discovered.     Parthenogenesis  is  a  phenomenon 

well  known  to  apiarists,  for  the  drone  has  no  male 

ancestor  nearer  than  his  grandfather.     This  can  be 

demonstrated  by  cross-fertilizing,  say,  a  black  queen 

with  an  Italian  drone.     The  resulting  drones  will  be 

pure  blacks,  while  the  workers  will  be  hybrids.     (A 

few  mysterious  exceptions  have  been  known  to  this 

rule.)     Thus,  a  virgin  queen  that  has  never  left  the 

hive  can  lay  fertile  eggs,  but  these  will  all  produce 

drones.     The  same  is  true  of  that  lusus  naturae,  the 

fertile  worker.     Another  point  worth  noticing  is  that 

impregnation  can  only  take  place  on  the  wing.     No 

human  eye  has  yet  witnessed  the  nuptials  of  the 

queen-bee.     After  a  few  preliminary  flights,  during 

which  she  takes  stock  of  her  landmarks,  she  soars 

aloft,  pursued  by  rival  drones.     Only  the  strongest 

and  swiftest  can  overtake  her  and  expel  the  sper- 

matophore  from  his  body  into  hers.     He  then  falls 

lifeless  to  the  ground,  and  she  returns  to  the  hive 

trailing  part  of  the  male  organs  behind  her.    A  single 

impregnation  suffices   her  for  a  life  of  four  or  five 

years,  and  in  the  height  of  the  season  she  will  lay, 

when  in   her  prime,  not  '  at  least  200  eggs  a  day ' 

82 


Georgic   iv.    195 — 198 

(Page),  nor  'several  thousand  every  summer'  (Martyn), 
but  from  2,000  to  3,000  eggs  a  day. 

The  spermatozoa,  or  male  element,  are  stored  in 
the  spermatotheca,  and  emitted  or  not,  at  will,  as  the 
egg  passes  down  the  oviduct.  Drone  cells  are  larger 
than  worker  cells,  and  the  queen  is  guided  by  the  size 
of  the  cell  in  which  she  lays.  The  excessive  number 
of  the  '  ignavum  fucos  pecus '  (168)  is  Nature's  pro- 
vision against  inbreeding,  and  also  against  the  loss 
of  the  queen  or  the  failure  of  her  errand;  for  the 
greater  the  number  of  the  drones  from  other  hives, 
the  greater  the  chance  the  queen  has  of  securing  one, 
and  that  a  strong  one,  on  the  first  opportunity. 

The  fact  that  coition  can  only  take  place  on  the 
wing  is  another  wonderful  security  of  the  same  kind. 
The  male  is  so  constructed  that  his  organ  cannot  be 
brought  into  use  on  the  ground,  but  only  when  the 
tracheae  and  sacs  are  expanded  with  air,  and  pressure 
thus  produced  on  the  abdomen.  In  the  race  for  the 
queen  natural  selection  eliminates  the  unfit. 

All  this  marvellous  story,  which  savours  of  the 
miraculous,  but  is  now  common  property  among 
naturalists,  helps  us  to  understand  the  '  quod  neque 
concubitu  indulgent '  (198)  of  the  ancients.  Huber 
enclosed  a  queen  with  a  drone  in  a  box,  and  Virgil 
might  have  done  the  same  with  the  same  results. 
The  perpetual  virginity  of  the  workers,  the  vast 
majority  of  the  population,  which  are  really  un- 
developed queens,  would  confirm  the  superstition. 
The  eggs  which  produce  queens  and  workers  are 
identical,  the  difference  being  brought  about  after 

83 


Bees 

hatching  and  entirely  by  feeding.  Why  richer  food 
should  cause  not  merely  better  development,  but 
actual  differences  of  structure,  is  a  mystery  that  no 
one  has  fathomed.  Possibly  the  greater  space  in 
the  queen  cell  is  an  important  factor.  Provided  that 
the  grub  is  not  more  than  three  days  old,  it  can  be 
converted  into  a  queen  at  the  will  of  the  workers. 

1  E  foliis  .  .  .  et  suavibus  herbis '  (200)  is  probably 
due  to  pollen  being  mistaken  for  eggs.  Aristotle,  as 
Conington  points  out,  went  so  far  as  to  mention  the 
trees  and  plants  by  name,  though  he  quotes  the 
opinion  as  that  of  others.  But  it  is  only  fair  to  him 
to  add  that,  according  to  some  of  his  authorities, 
drone  eggs  are  carried  from  trees  and  plants,  but 
worker  eggs  produced  by  the  queens  (7-01/9  rjye/jLova';).1 
Columella  was  an  early  sceptic,  doubting  whether 
bees  '  concubitu  sobolem  procreent,  an  .  .  .  floribus 
eligant,  quod  amrmat  noster  Maro.'2 

Considering  that  the  belief  in  spontaneous  genera- 
tion persisted  till  the  day  of  Pasteur  and  his  celebrated 
sealed  bottles,  it  is  not  surprising  that  an  unscientific 
age  applied  it  to  larger  creatures,  even  mice.  Lecky3 
gives  a  curious  quotation  from  Vives  {De  Anima,  i.): 
1  De  viventibus  alia  generationem  habent  spontaneum, 
ut  muscae,  culices,  formicae,  apes :  quae  nee  sexum 
ullum  habent.  Alia  ex  commixtione  sexuum  prodeunt, 
ut  homo,  equus,  canis,  leo.  Sunt  quae  ambiguam 
habent  procreationem,  ut  mures ;  nam  eorum  alii  ex 
sordibus  sine  concubitu,  alii  ex  concubitu  prodeunt.' 

1  H.  A.  v.  21.  2  R.  R.  ix.  2-4. 

3  History  of  Rationalism,  vol.  i.,  p.  342. 

84 


Georgic  iv.    199 — 218 

The  belief  that  young  bees  were  gathered  from 
flowers  is  found  as  late  as  1679  in  the  Further 
Discovery  of  Bees  of  Moses  Rusden,  Bee-Master 
to  King  Charles  II.1  Butler,  who  wrote  under 
Queen  Anne,  was  almost  alone  in  his  day  in  rejecting 
this  theory. 

The  fraying  of  the  wings  (203)  may  frequently  be 
noticed  in  old  bees.  The  natural  term  of  life  in  a 
worker  bee  is  no  more  than  six  weeks,  but  those  born 
late  in  the  autumn  live  through  the  winter  and  raise 
a  new  stock  in  the  spring.  These  may  live  six 
months.  A  queen  is  considered  old  enough  after 
two  years  by  modern  bee-masters,  but  will  live  four 
or  five  if  allowed.  Her  fertility  declines  after  her 
second  season.  Not  even  a  queen  will  live  seven 
years  (207).  Virgil  is  probably  copying  Aristotle, 
who  gives  ten  years  as  the  maximum  for  a  swarm, 
and  six  or  seven  for  the  individual  bee. 

The  passage  210-218  is  in  the  main  true  to  facts. 
The  bees  seem  to  know  that  the  life  of  the  hive 
depends  entirely  on  the  queen.  If  they  lose  and  fail 
to  find  her  after  a  few  hours'  search,  they  begin  to 
raise  another  from  a  worker  grub.  If  they  have  no 
grubs  under  three  days  old,  they  grow  idle  and  listless, 
and,  unless  supplied  with  another  queen,  gradually 
perish.  Line  214  is  an  exaggeration,  and  '  operum 
custos'  (215)  is  of  course  a  mistake  already  noticed. 
'Attollunt  humeris'  (217)  may  be  true  occasionally, 
but  they  usually  protect  the  queen  by  thronging 
round  her  (216).  An  intensification  of  the  same 
1  T.  Edwardes,  Lore,  ch.  iii. 

85 


Bees 

method,  known  as  '  balling,'  is  used  for  suffocating 
a  strange  or  useless  queen. 

In  the  passage  219-2271  Virgil  is  hardly  consistent 
with  himself.  He  seems  to  be  divided  between  the 
theory  that  bees  are  specially  inspired,  and  the 
theory  that  all  living  things  contain  some  divine 
essence.  In  i.  415  he  rejected  the  latter  theory. 
Here  he  seems  to  join  the  Stoics  against  the 
Epicureans.    The  commentators  give  many  parallels. 

The  question  of  the  intelligence  of  the  bees  is 
more  or  less  open,  as  Virgil  leaves  it.  Lord  Ave- 
bury's2  experiments  led  him  to  take  a  somewhat  low 
view  of  it.  In  their  originality,  care  for  one  another, 
and  devotion  to  their  queen  he  discovered  serious 
limitations.3  Maeterlinck  takes  the  opposite  side 
with  more  zeal  than  caution.  Kay  Robinson  has 
already  been  quoted.4 

Probably  the  detractors  have  suffered  from  being 
led  to  expect  far  more  than  they  found.  The  bee's  in- 
telligence is,  after  all,  not  human ;  but  the  bee-republic 
as  a  whole  is  a  civilization  of  a  very  high  order,  and 
implies  mind  somewhere  at  the  back  of  it.  The 
brain  of  the  bee5  is  about  ryrth  of  its  body ;  that  of 
the  ant  ^g-e-th  ;  and  so  on,  through  the  ichneumon 
and  cockchafer,  to  the  dytiscus  or  water  -  beetle 
ToVoth.  The  queen  and  drone  have  a  smaller  brain. 
Other  interesting  facts  are  quoted  by  Cowan,  who 

1  Plumtre  quotes  it  on  Ecclesiastes  xii.  7. 

2  Ants,  Bees,  and  Wasps,  pp.  278-287. 

3  Appendix  B,  §  16.  4  See  p.  74. 
R  Cowan,  Honey-Bee,  p.  70. 

86 


Georgic  iv    219 — 227 

sums  up  with  the  words :  'it  is  impossible  to  deny 
mental  faculty  to  [the  worker-bee].' 

Modern  naturalists  find  the  line  between  instinct 
and  reason  increasingly  difficult  to  draw.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  the  cell  of  the  bee  has  never  varied 
since  history  began,  and  this  was  actually  urged 
against  Darwin's  theories  half  a  century  ago.  The 
shape  of  the  cell  has  also  been  traced  not  to  any  in- 
telligence on  the  part  of  the  bee,  but  to  '  statical 
pressure  according  to  the  laws  of  equilibrium.'  But 
the  bee  has  proved  herself  capable  of  adapting  the 
shape  of  her  cell  and  her  comb  to  altered  circum- 
stances. If  she  cannot  build  downwards,  she  will 
build  upwards,  and  if  the  hexagonal  form  of  cell  does 
not  suit  the  situation  she  will  build  square  or  acute- 
angled  cells,  as  Cowan1  shows  by  illustrations.  In 
fact,  '  although  the  bees  may  endeavour  to  arrive  at 
a  perfectly  symmetrical  cell,  they  hardly  ever  obtain 
one.' 

The  cells-walls  are  only  yihjth  of  an  inch  thick, 
yet,  according  to  T.  Edwardes,2  the  comb  will  not 
merely  support,  but  suspend  a  weight  thirty  times 
greater  than  its  own. 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  a  swarm  sends 
out  scouts,  which  come  and  report  when  they  have 
discovered  a  suitable  place  for  the  new  home. 

But  these  are  only  a  few  examples  out  of  a  vast 

number  of  facts  which  tend  to  prove  the  existence  of 

intelligence  of  a  high  order  in  the  bee.     Either  she 

possesses  something  more  than  instinct,  or  she  has 

1  Honey-Bee,  p.  185.  2  Lore,  ch.  xii. 

87 


Bees 

been  the  object  of  Divine  '  directivity  '  to  an  excep- 
tional degree.  The  evolution  of  the  bee  has  not  been 
accomplished  by  mere  natural  selection.  Virgil  had 
a  glimpse  of  the  truth  when  he  wrote  of  '  naturas 
apibus  quas  Juppiter  ipse  addidit '  (149,  150).  The 
Koran,  in  its  chapter  on  the  bee,  agrees  with  him  : 
1  The  Lord  spake  by  inspiration  unto  the  bee.' 

Virgil's  directions  for  taking  the  honey,  or  '  vin- 
demiating '  the  bees,  as  John  Evelyn  calls  it,  are 
vastly  superior  to  the  method  of  killing  them  with 
the  fumes  of  sulphur,  which  was  still  common  even 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  At  the  present  day  smoke 
is  used,  with  only  this  difference,  that  whereas 
Virgil  used  'fumos  sequaces,'  to  drive  the  bees  away, 
the  modern  apiarist  uses  it  to  frighten  the  bees, 
which  immediately  gorge  themselves  with  honey, 
and  may  be  handled  with  comparative  impunity. 
Smoking  bees  away  is  not  usual  now,  but  appears  to 
be  still  the  rule  in  Cyprus,  where  cylinders  of 
earthenware  are  used  as  hives.  *  When  it  is  required 
to  secure  the  honey  the  cover  at  the  back  end  is 
removed  and  smoke  blown  in,  the  bees  escaping  by 
their  usual  front  entrance.'1  Aeneid  xii.  587-592  is 
worth  comparing. 

*  Ora  fove '  is  good  advice,  for  bees  dislike  breath 
or  sweat  or  any  strong  smell  (cf.  49).  A  draught  of 
beer  used  to  be  recommended,  but  is  obsolete  now. 
Butler's  Feminine  Monarchic2  (ch.  i.  33)  has  a  fine 
passage : 

1  If  thou  wilt  have  the  favour  of  thy  Bees,  that  they 
1  Bee-Keeper's  Record,  February,  1912.         2  Cotton,  p.  98. 
88 


Georgic  iv.   228 — 235 

sting  thee  not,  thou  must  avoid  some  things  which 
offend  them  :  thou  must  not  be  unchaste  and  un- 
cleanly;  for  impurity  and  sluttiness  (themselves  being 
most  chaste  and  neat)  they  utterly  abhor :  thou  must 
not  come  among  them  smelling  of  sweat,  or  having 
a  stinking  breath,  caused  either  through  eating  of 
leeks,  onion,  garlick,  and  the  like,  or  by  any  other 
means,  the  noisomeness  whereof  is  corrected  with  a 
cup  of  beer :  thou  must  not  be  given  to  surfeiting  or 
drunkenness  :  thou  must  not  come  puffing  and  blow- 
ing unto  them,  neither  hastily  stir  among  them,  nor 
resolutely  defend  thyself  when  they  seem  to  threaten 
thee ;  but  softly  moving  thy  hand  before  thy  face, 
gently  put  them  by :  and  lastly  thou  must  be  no 
stranger  unto  them.  In  a  word,  thou  must  be  chaste, 
cleanly,  sweet,  sober,  quiet,  and  familiar,  so  will 
they  love  thee,  and  know  thee  from  all  other.' 

The  two  harvests  (231-235)  are  mentioned  by 
Aristotle,  Varro,  and  Pliny.  Varro1  gives  three — 
1  vergiliarum  exortu,'  '  aestate  acta,'  and  '  post  ver- 
giliarum  occasum.'  The  season  may  begin  any  time 
in  the  spring  and  last  to  the  end  of  September,  or, 
where  ivy  is  plentiful,  even  into  October,  in  this 
country.  But  in  Southern  Europe,  where  the  winters 
are  short,  it  may  well  have  been  customary  and  profit- 
able to  take  the  honey  twice  or  thrice  a  year.2  The 
barbarous  practice  of  killing  the  bees  before  winter 
would  have  rendered  this  impossible. 

1  R.  R.,  iii.  16,  34. 

2  Aristotle  (H.  A.  v.  22)  speaks  of   a  race  of  bees  in  the 
Pontus,  '  which  make  honey  twice  a  month/ 

89 


Bees 

Line  239  is  understood  by  Keightley  to  mean  *  if 
you  wish  to  preserve  the  stock  through  the  winter.' 
It  may  be  that  some  stocks  were  allowed  to  die  of 
starvation,  for  Virgil  says  nothing  about  artificial 
feeding,  which  is  considered  essential  now.  If  no 
candy  is  given  in  winter,  care  must  be  taken  that 
sufficient  honey  is  left  to  support  the  hive  till  the 
spring  flowers  may  be  depended  on.1  '  It  is  a  lament- 
able fact,'  says  Cowan,2  'that  hundreds  of  strong, 
prospering  colonies  perish  every  year  for  want  of 
timely  attention  with  regard  to  the  store  in  the  hive.' 
But  in  248-250  Virgil  is  asserting  another  truth. 
Leaving  surplus  honey  only  makes  the  bees  idle. 
The  most  profitable  plan  is  to  feed  them  freely  at 
all  seasons,  and  remove  the  large  surplus  that  results. 
But,  again,  the  feeding  must  not  be  overdone,  or  the 
honey  will  be  simply  raw  syrup. 

'  Morsibus '  (237)  is  no  proof  that  *  Virgil  forgets 
that  bees  do  not  bite '  (Sidgwick).  The  context 
shows  that  he  knew  something  about  stings.  'Morsus 
pro  aculeorum  ictibus  dici,  obvium '  (Heyne) .  '  Morsus ' 
is  used  by  other  writers  metaphorically  ('doloris, 
curarum,'  etc.)  where  we  should  say  '  sting.'3 

1  Animasque  in  vulnere  ponunt '  (238)  is  not  always 
true.  A  bee's  sting  is  barbed,  and  in  her  haste  to 
get  away  she  generally  loses  sting,  poison-sac,  glands, 
and  the  lower  portion  of  the  abdomen  as  well.  If 
this  happens,  she  invariably  dies,  but  may  live  for 

1  '  But  when  the  bee-keepers  take  out  the  combs,  they  leave 
them  food  through  the  winter'  (Aristotle,  H.  A.  ix.  40). 

2  Guide-Book,  p.  109.  3  Appendix  B,  §  17. 

90 


Georgic  iv.   236 — 251 

an  hour  or  more,  as  Lord  Avebury1  discovered.  But 
if  given  time,  she  will  sometimes  extract  her  sting 
and  be  none  the  worse.  The  commentators  are  all 
inaccurate  here. 

Fumigation  (241)  is  regularly  used  now  for  dis- 
infecting purposes  after  disease,  and  old  combs  need 
removing  when  they  become  dirty  and  choked,  or 
perforated  by  the  larvae  of  the  wax-moth  (Galleria 
cerella),  the  '  dirum,  tineae,  genus.'  '  Blatta  '  is  the 
cockroach,  erroneously  called  the  black-beetle;  and 
*  stellio '  is  probably  the  newt  or  eft,  but  Keightley 
identifies  it  with  the  lizard  of  line  13.  Martyn  says 
it  is  '  a  small  spotted  lizard,  called  also  a  swift.' 
From  this  and  his  note  on  line  13  it  appears  that  he 
means  the  common  newt.  Spiders  (247)  catch  bees 
in  their  webs. 

It  is  strange  that  Virgil  has  omitted  the  wasp.2 
Other  pests  are  the  ant,  blind  louse,  toad,  earwig, 
and  the  Sphinx  atropos,  or  death's-head  moth,  which, 
according  to  Michelet,  came  to  Europe  from  America 
with  the  potato  shortly  before  the  French  Revolution, 
and  gave  much  trouble  to  bee-keepers. 

With  line  251  begins  a  long  passage  about  diseases 
of  bees  and  their  remedies.  What  particular  disease 
Virgil  has  in  mind  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  Bees 
are  subject  to  dysentery,  foul  brood  of  various  kinds, 
bee  paralysis,  May  pest,  and  the  Isle  of  Wight 
bee  disease.     Probably  he  is  describing   several   of 

1  Op.  tit.  p.  283. 

2  Aristotle  mentions  it  more  than  once  (ix.  40).  Cf.  Varro 
iii.  16.  19. 

91 


Bees 

these  as  one  disease.  Dysentery  is  due  to  improper 
feeding  in  winter,  or  unsealed  honey  which  has  fer- 
mented. It  can  be  cured  by  medicated  food,  such 
as  Virgil  prescribes,  and  warmth.  Galls  (267)  are 
astringent,  and  would  be  good  for  dysentery.  Foul 
brood,  and  its  varieties,  black  brood  and  sour  brood, 
chiefly  affect  the  brood  or  larvae.  Pliny  speaks  of 
*  blapsigonia '  (xi.  20),  which  was  doubtless  foul 
brood.  It  is  terribly  contagious,  and,  if  not  checked 
early,  almost  incurable.  But  Virgil's  symptoms  are 
applied  to  the  perfect  insect,  no  reference  being 
made  to  larvae  or  pupae ;  hence  his  disease  was 
probably,  first  and  foremost,  some  kind  of  bee 
paralysis. 

His  description  would  then  be  true,  and  the  total 
loss  of  the  whole  stock  (281)  easily  accounted  for. 
Epidemics  work  great  havoc  in  so  compact  a  society 
as  a  hive.  Delia  Rocca  mentions  that  Syra  in  the 
Cyclades  lost  nearly  every  colony  through  disease  in 
1777-1780. 

The  May  pest,  '  mal  de  mai,'  or  *  Maikrankheit,' 
raged  in  France  and  neighbouring  countries  in  1853 
and  1855  after  wet  and  co^  springs,  and  about  ten 
years  later  two-thirds  of  the  hives  were  lost  in 
Northern  France  from  the  same  disease,  which  is 
a  form  of  paralysis.  The  bees  gradually  lose  the 
power  of  flight.  '  They  will  also  be  seen  towards 
evening  gathering  in  clusters  for  warmth,  but  most 
of  them  die  during  the  night  from  exposure.'1  This 
agrees  with  Virgil  (257-259).  Dead  bees  are  carried 
1  Cowan,  Guide- Book,  p.  187. 
92 


Georgic  iv.    252 — 281 

away  from  the  hive  if  possible  (255),  or  at  least 
thrown  outside  it. 

Another  form  of  paralysis,  the  Isle  of  Wight  bee 
disease  (microsporidiosis) ,  was  first  observed  in  1904, 
and  decimated  the  old  stocks  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  to 
such  an  extent  that  fruit-growers  complain  of  the 
scarcity  of  bees  in  their  orchards.  Already  well 
known  on  the  Continent,  it  soon  found  its  way  to 
England,  with  dire  results  in  some  counties.  No 
certain  cure  has  yet  been  discovered.  It  is  being 
investigated  by  the  Board  of  Agriculture  and  Fish- 
eries, and  in  1908  was  taken  up  by  European  bacteri- 
ologists. Since  then  a  Bee  Diseases  Bill  has  been 
before  Parliament. 

The  Master  of  Christ's,  Cambridge,  writing  in 
Country  Life  of  May  20, 191 1,  describes  the  symptoms 
as  '  first  a  disinclination  of  the  bees  to  work  and  a 
habit  of  flying  about  aimlessly;  then  they  begin  to 
lose  their  power  of  flight,  and  are  unable  to  travel 
more  than  a  few  yards  without  alighting,  till  finally 
they  can  only  crawl,  and  may  be  seen  creeping  up 
grass  stems  or  other  upright  objects.  After  that  the 
end  comes  quickly  and  they  die.  .  .  .  The  queen  and 
the  brood  are  not  affected.'1 

Cures  have  been  reported,  but  the  best  hope  of 
saving  a  colony  is,  at  present,  to  destroy  all  affected 
stocks    at   once.      The    method   of   replacing    them 

1  According  to  later  reports  the  queen  is  not  immune. 
Dr.  Shipley  has  another  article  in  Country  Life  of  July  19,  1913. 
He  compares  the  world-wide  havoc  played  by  silk-worm 
disease  in  the  last  century. 

93 


Bees 

described  in  the  last  300  lines  of  the  book  is  un- 
fortunately an  elaborate  fiction.  Several  of  the 
commentators  settle  the  question  in  their  own  way, 
but  none  of  them  satisfactorily.  The  story  of  Sam- 
son is  usually  quoted  in  support.  '  We  have  the 
authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,'  says  Martyn,  '  that 
bees  will  proceed  from  the  putrid  carcase  of  an 
animal.'  The  queen-bee,  according  to  him,  had  laid 
her  eggs  in  the  lion's  body,  to  be  hatched  by  its 
fermenting  warmth.  Page  is  bold  enough  to  say: 
1  That  bees  will  settle  in  a  decaying  carcase  is  well 
known.'  Even  Keightley  thinks  that  the  admission 
of  the  queen-bee  through  an  open  window  '  clears 
the  whole  mystery.' 

But,  apart  from  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for 
this  independent  enterprise  on  the  part  of  the  queen- 
bee,  there  remains  the  fact  that  bees  loathe  carrion. 
Virgil  himself  has  noticed  their  dislike  of  strong 
smells  (48,  49).  The  bee,  as  Aristotle  observes,  is 
a  very  clean  creature,  and  a  swarm  in  a  decaying 
carcase  is  out  of  the  question.  Accordingly,  Tickner 
Edwardes  dismisses  Samson's  honey  as  unhistorical. 
But  this  is  unnecessary.  '  We  must  not  suppose 
that  the  carcase  was  a  putrid  and  corrupt  mass,  for 
in  the  dry  season  the  heat  will  speedily  render  a 
carcase  in  that  climate  a  mere  mummy  without  any 
offensive  smell  until  it  is  moistened,  and  the  ants 
speedily  clear  away  all  the  softer  parts  of  the  body, 
if  any  are  left  by  the  vultures,  so  that  merely  the 
skeleton  and  hide  would  remain.11 

1  Tristram,  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  324,  <  The  Bee.' 
94 


Georgic  iv.   282 — 558 

The  story  in  Judges  xiv.  leaves  plenty  of  time  for 
this  to  occur,  for  in  a  few  hours  a  carcase  may  be 
reduced  '  to  a  ligamentous  skeleton,  which  is  soon 
dried  in  the  fierce  heat,  and  would  make  as  savoury 
a  hive  as  the  cowdung-plastered  baskets  which  are 
used  for  raising  bees.'1  Samson's  honey  is  thus  easily 
accounted  for,  but  Virgil's  story,  which  appears  in 
Florentinus  and  other  writers,2  requires  a  different 
explanation.  The  first  thing  to  notice  is  that  honey 
is  conspicuous  by  its  absence.  No  one  ever  speaks 
of  seeing  these  ox-bred  bees  settle  in  a  hive  or  produce 
honey.  The  details  of  the  putrefying  flesh  cannot 
be  explained  away,  and  the  best  solution  seems  to 
be  that  these  insects  were  not  bees  at  all,  but  drone- 
flies,  which  resemble  bees  so  closely  as  to  deceive 
even  good  observers.  The  swarm  at  the  end  of  the 
book  (558)  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  a  poetical 
embellishment. 

The  rest  of  Virgil's  description  will  suit  the  drone- 
fly  (Eristalis  tcnax)  sufficiently  well.  Michelet,  in 
his  chapter  on  '  The  Bees  of  Virgil,1  describes  these 
pseudo-bees  in  a  cemetery.  '  Reaumur  confesses  that 
for  a  moment  even  he  was  deceived  by  them.'     If 

1  Hastings,  Diet,  of  the  Bible,  '  The  Bee.5  «  At  the  present 
day  swarms  of  wild  bees  often  make  their  habitations  within 
the  desiccated  bodies  of  dead  camels  that  have  perished  on 
the  way'  (J.  G.  Wood,  Bible  Animals,  p.  608). 

2  Cf.  Varro  iii.  16.  4  :  '  Primum  apes  nascuntur  partim  ex 
apibus,  partim  ex  bubulo  corpore  putrefacto.  Itaque  Archelaus 
in  epigrammate  ait  eas  esse — 

'  "  fioos  (p6i[xevrjs  rreir\avqfx(va  reKva." 
(idem)      '  "  lttttqov  pev  acfiijues  yevea,  ixoa\oov  be  /xeXicrcrai." ' 

95 


Bees 

Michelet  and  Reaumur  could  be  deceived,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  this  superstition  lasted  into  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

Cotton1  has  preserved  an  account  of  how  Virgil's 
experiment  was  successfully  conducted  in  Cornwall : 
'  I  did  ever  think  that  the  generation  of  bees  out  of 
the  carcass  of  a  dead  calf,  given  us  by  divers  of  the 
ancients,  but  most  amply  and  elegantly  by  Virgil  in 
the  fourth  book  of  his  Georgicks,  had  been  a  fiction, 
but  am  glad  to  find  the  contrary  by  your  letter,  which 
confirmed  the  same  out  of  modern  and  English 
experience.' 

A  superstition  which  gave  birth  to  so  beautiful  a 
passage  as  the  second  part  of  the  fourth  Georgic  must 
be  judged  mercifully.  Michelet,  at  least,  will  not 
laugh  at  it.  For  him  Virgil  is  a  holy  prophet,  as  he 
was  to  Christian  readers  of  the  fourth  Eclogue  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  '  I  know,  I  feel,  that  every  word  of 
this  great  sacred  poet  has  a  weighty  value,  an 
authority  which  I  would  designate  as  that  of  an 
augur  and  a  pontiff.  .  .  .  His  "  Resurrection  of  the 
Bees"  is  a  song  full  of  immortality,  which,  in  the 
mystery  of  Nature's  transformations,  embodies  our 
highest  hope — that  death  is  not  a  death,  but  the 
beginning  of  a  new  life.' 

1  Op.  clt.  p.  354. 


96 


APPENDIX  A 

§  i.  See  Page  2. 

1  Oxen  used  to  be  employed  on  many  farms  in  Sussex, 
but  are  now  almost  given  up.  They  are  broken  in  when 
two  years  old.  They  work  about  two  miles  an  hour. 
No  bits  or  reins  are  used,  but  a  long  hazel  goad '  (Country 
Life,  August  31,  1912). 

Since  then  the  following  has  appeared  in  the  Morning 
Post  : 

1  What  is  thought  to  be  the  last  team  of  draught  oxen 
in  Sussex  was  sold  at  Housedean  Farm,  near  Lewes, 
yesterday.  The  beasts  were  used  on  the  South  Downs 
under  an  aged  teamster  named  Frank  Richardson,  and 
visitors  from  far  and  near  came  to  see  them.  They  were 
disposed  of  in  four  pairs  at  ^37  to  £\6  a  pair.  The 
wooden  yoke  was  purchased  by  the  Mayor  of  Brighton 
for  presentation  to  the  Brighton  Museum.' 

§  2.  See  Page  53. 

Mr.  G.  A.  B.  Dewar  thinks  the  Countess  Cesaresco's 
case  is  not  proven.  I  wrote  to  him  on  the  subject  last 
year,  and  this  was  his  reply  in  the  Morning  Post : 

'  I  now  remember  that  a  friend  with  whom  I  was 
staying  at  Levanto  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  week 
in  April  last  year  told  me  that  the  nightingale  sang  on 
into  the  summer  there.     But  when  do  the  nightingales 

97  H 


Appendix  A 

finish  their  nesting  in  that  and  other  parts  of  Italy?  I 
searched  for  nests  in  the  Apennines  on  April  22,  23, 
and  24,  and  though  there  were  birds  singing  all  abou 
me  I  could  not  find  a  trace  of  a  nest  yet  begun,  and  it  is 
my  belief  that  neither  nightingales  nor  blackcaps,  if  indeed 
willow  warblers,  had  begun  to  build.  The  nesting  season 
of  these  and  other  birds  in  the  South  is  not  so  early  as 
one  might  suppose. 

1  Hence  I  think  it  very  likely  that  nightingales  may  be 
heard  in  June  throughout  Italy,  whether  they  usually  sing 
after  the  young  are  hatched  or  not.  A  June  nightingale 
in  full  song  in  Italy  need  break  no  rule  we  know  in 
England. 

1  But  if  the  nightingales  of  Mantua — or  of  Levanto — 
continue  to  "  drown  the  noise  of  the  engines  "  through 
July,  I  think  we  must  revise  our  English  lore  about 
the  bird.  Shakespeare  thought  the  "  temple-haunting 
martlets  "  nested  more  freely  where  the  air  was  most 
delicate.  I  am  not  confident  this  was  good  natural  history. 
Would  it  be  any  better  natural  history  to  assume  that 
nightingales  sing  more  freely  and  longer  where  the  air  is 
most  delicate  P'1 

There  is  special  force  in  '  late  .  .  .  implet '  (515),  for 
the  nightingale's  song  has  extraordinary  carrying-power. 
Tennyson  compares  music  to  it  in  the  Vision  of  Sin  : 

'  Storm'd  in  orbs  of  song,  a  growing  gale ; 

Till  thronging  in  and  in,  to  where  they  waited, 
As  'twere  a  hundred-throated  nightingale, 
The  strong  tempestuous  treble  palpitated.' 

I  myself  have  heard  the  nightingale  on  a  still  night  at  a 
distance  of  at  least  half  a  mile  as  the  crow  flies. 

1  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  tells  me  that  Italian  nightingales  often 
have  a  second  brood,  and  sing  in  July. 

98 


Appendix  A 

§  3.   See  Page  59. 

The  late  Professor  Churton  Collins,1  commenting  on 
this  line,  remarked  that,  '  for  very  obvious  reasons,'  the 
swallow  does  not  hunt  the  bee.  But  in  1900  he  received 
a  letter  from  Samuel  Deacon,  a  bee-keeper  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  saying  that  he  had  shot  great  numbers 
of  the  swallow  tribe  (three  different  species),  and  found 
them  '  choke  full  of  my  poor  bees.'  He  adds  that  they 
catch  workers  as  well  as  drones,  not  heeding  the  stings. 

Gilbert  White2  has  an  interesting  story  of  an  idiot  boy 
who  enjoyed  immunity  from  stings,  sucking  the  bodies  of 
bees  for  the  sake  of  their  honey.  '  He  was  a  very  met  ops 
apiastet,  or  bee-bird,  and  very  injurious  to  men  that  kept 
bees  ;  for  he  would  slide  into  their  bee-gardens,  and, 
sitting  down  before  the  stools,  would  rap  with  his  finger 
on  the  hives,  and  so  take  the  bees  as  they  came  out.  He 
has  been  known  to  overturn  hives  for  the  sake  of  honey, 
of  which  he  was  passionately  fond.' 

§  4.  See  Pages  62,  65,  and  81. 

1.  Do  bees  sleep  ? 

2.  Do  they  hear  ? 

3.  Do  they  ventilate  the  hive  by  fanning  ? 

These  three  questions  were  answered  for  me  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Mace,  bee  expert  to  the  Field,  in  the  Field 
of  July  26,  1913. 

1.  'That  bees  sleep  in  the  same  sense  as  man  is  un- 
likely, since  the  salient  feature  of  sleep  is  a  dormant 
condition  of  the  brain.  In  animals  in  which  the  brain  is 
not  entirely  centralized  there  is  rarely  an  entire  suspension 

1  Life  and  Memoirs,  p.  150. 

2  Letter  XXVII. ,  to  Harrington. 

99 


Appendix  A 

of  consciousness.  Nevertheless,  bees  rest  motionless  for 
very  long  periods  sometimes,  and  it  is  probable  that  this 
repose  enables  some  of  the  waste  to  be  repaired.  During 
the  summer  activity  is  constant  in  the  hive  night  and 
day.  Clearly,  light  and  darkness  make  no  difference  to 
the  interior.' 

2.  *  It  is  universally  accepted  that  the  queens  can  hear 
each  other  piping ;  and  one  might  ask,  If  the  bees  cannot 
hear  each  other,  what  possible  purpose  do  the  sounds 
serve  ?' 

3.  '  Undoubtedly.  Fanning  or  vibration  of  wings  by 
standing  bees  is  used  for  other  purposes  than  ventilation, 
but  that  is  the  principal  use  of  it.'  Mr.  Mace  proceeds 
to  prove  this  with  an  array  of  facts  too  long  for  quotation 
here. 

§  5.  See  Pages  94  to  96. 

Cf.  C.  R.  Osten  Sacken  On  the  Oxen-bom  Bees  of  the 
Ancients  (Bugonia)  and  their  Relation  to  Eristalis  Tenax,  a 
Two-Winged  Insect  (Heidelberg,  1894).  This  very  interest- 
ing and  convincing  defence  of  the  drone-fly  theory  came 
into  my  hands  too  late  for  use. 


100 


APPENDIX  B 

The  following  notes  were  sent  me  by  Mr.  L.  E.  Upcott, 
of  Marlborough.  My  own  additions  to  them  are  enclosed 
in  square  brackets. 

§  i.  See  Page  3. 

A  better  illustration  would  be  Xen.,  De  Re  Eq.,  x.  4 : 
kcu  to.  jxev  ctkcXt]  vypa  fieT€0)pi£ei,  which  is  almost  exactly 
'  mollia  crura  reponit.'     vypbs  =  lissome,  supple. 

[In  the  De  Re  Equestvi  Xenophon  uses  vypos  fourteen 
times. 

In  vii.  6  and  7  he  applies  it  to  the  legs  of  the  rider 
from  the  knee  downwards,  and  to  his  body  from  the 
hips  upwards. 

In  x.  8-10  he  says  the  bit  must  be  vypos,  and  contrasts 
it  with  the  a-KX^pbs  xaA^os>  or  rigid  bit. 

In  x.  15 — xi.  2  he  applies  it  again  to  the  legs  and 
body  of  the  horse.  The  legs  of  an  angry  horse  are  lifted 
high,  but  are  not  vypd.  The  horse  whose  legs  are  vypa. 
is  eulogized  thus :  kcu  ol  QzwfxevoL  rbv  tWoy  tolovtov 
a.TTOKa.Xov(TLV  kXtvdkpiov  re  kol  Wekovpybv  kou  vKTra<JT\)v  kcu 
OvjxoeiByj  kcu  croftapbv  kcu  a/xa  fj&vv  tc  kou  yopybv  ISeiv.  The 
whole  passage  is  an  excellent  commentary  on  Virgil's 
use  of  '  mollis.'] 

§  2.  See  Page  6. 
Mounting   is   ordinarily   done   from   the   '  near '   side. 
But  if  you  have  a  spear  in  the   right   hand,  and   are 

101 


Appendix  B 

leading  the  horse  with  the  left,  you  must  practise  mount- 
ing from  the  '  off '  side.  So  Xen.  vii.  3.  There  were  two 
ways  of  mounting,  according  as  you  did  or  did  not  use  a 
spear  to  help  in  the  vault,  [airo  Soparos  dva7rr}8av,  Xen., 
vii.  1.]     Of  course,  the  ancients  did  not  use  stirrups. 

The  ancient  monuments  show  horsemen  holding  a 
spear,  and  preparing  to  mount  on  the  right  side.  In  the 
frieze  of  the  Parthenon  a  young  man  without  a  spear 
stands  on  the  left. 

§  3.  See  Page  8. 

In  respect  of  'gyros  dedere'  (115),  Xenophon  gives 
directions  for  the  use  of  the  7reS?/,  which  is  a  kind  of 
LTnracrta  (manhge).  It  should  be  erepopj/^s  (oblong)  rather 
than  KVKXoreprjs  (circular)  (Xen.,  vii.  13,  14;  cf.  iii.  5). 

§  4.  See  Page  8. 

Did  the  ancients  use  the  trot  ?  It  is,  I  fancy,  not  the 
natural  quick  motion  of  a  horse,  which  is  the  canter. 
The  trot  is  a  transition  from  the  canter  to  the  walk,  and 
the  continuance  of  this  movement  is  due  to  training. 
Formerly  Frenchmen  hardly  ever  used  the  trot,  and  that 
is  partly  the  reason  why  riding  as  a  pastime  was  not 
common  in  France.  It  seems  to  be  an  Anglo-Saxon 
invention. 

I  believe  it  is  very  difficult  to  make  Arabs  trot.  The 
Parthenon  horses  canter. 

[Barbs  are  also  poor  trotters.] 

§  5.  See  Page  12. 

The  Parthenon  horses  (though  the  metal  bits  and  reins 
are  gone)  show  the  horse's  muzzle  drawn  tight  back  to 
the  neck,  and  the  creases  of  the  neck  and  arch  of  the 
head  and  crest  are  very  marked.     This  indicates  the  use 

102 


Appendix  B 

of  a  very  heavy  bit,  though  Xenophon  recommends  light 
bits  (ix.  9).  Two  causes  were  at  work:  (1)  The  use  of 
stallions,  as  clearly  shown  in  the  Parthenon  marbles  ; 
(2)  the  non-use  of  stirrups,  which  give  more  purchase 
than  the  knee. 

[In  x.  6  Xenophon  recommends  not  less  than  two  bits, 
of  which  one  must  be  light  and  the  other  heavy.  The 
latter  should  have  rovs  ixtvovs  6^e?s  (sharp  points  at  each 
end  of  the  bit).  These,  according  to  Liddell  and  Scott, 
are  Virgil's  lupata,  the  '  wolf-bit.'  Apparently  the  heavy 
bit  is  for  training,  and  may  be  discarded  when  the  horse 
will  do  in  a  light  bit  what  he  has  been  taught  to  do  in 
the  heavy  one.] 

§  6.  See  Page  19. 

For  ancient  hunting  dogs,  see  the  remarkable  prick- 
eared,  long-muzzled,  large-pawed  dogs  carved  on  the 
Alexander  sarcophagus.  Were  these  Molossi  ?  There 
are  many  statues  of  dogs  in  the  Vatican  galleries,  but 
restorations  always  make  them  suspect  in  "  points.' 

§  7.  See  Page  21. 

The  treatise  on  hunting  is  Xenophon's  Cynegetica.  At 
the  end  he  praises  hunting  as  an  antidote  to  sophistry  in 
a  remarkable  passage. 

§  8.  See  Page  21. 

I  have  seen  the  capture  of  live  red-deer  in  Savernake 
Forest  by  the  netting  system.  The  deer  are  driven  into  an 
enclosed  glade.  Riders  hunt  the  herd  until  one  is  selected 
for  capture ;  he  is  headed  off,  and  gradually  driven  down 
a  long  lane  with  a  net  at  the  end.  This  is  erected  on 
forked  sticks  loosely  planted  in  the  ground.  The  stag 
tries  to  jump  it,  carries  it  away,  and  so  '  bags '  himself, 

103 


Appendix  B 

as  the  poles  drop.     Then  he  is  held  down,  and  his  antlers 
sawn  off ;  after  that  he  is  put  in  a  cart. 

The  'driving'  of  fallow-deer  by  long  ropes  with  feathers 
attached  is  also  used,  and  the  same  sort  of  rope  serves  as 
a  fence  to  keep  deer  off  any  place. 

§  9.  See  Page  22. 

Soiling-pits  are  necessary  for  red-deer  in  the  rutting 
season ;  you  see  them  in  Savernake  Forest  (see  Collyns, 
Red-Deer). 

§  10.  See  Page  52. 

Taa-repL  rvTrrova-at  (striking  the  water  with  their  bellies). 
It  is  curious  that  Aratus  was  a  better  observer  than 
Tennyson : 

*  Short  swallow-flights  of  song,  that  dip 
Their  wings  in  tears,  and  skim  away.' 

In  Memoriam,  xlviii. 

§  11.  See  Page  44. 

There  is  a  song  to  the  nightingale  in  Euripides,  Helena, 
1 107  et  seq.,  and  one  to  the  halcyon  in  Iphigenia  in  Tauris, 
1089  et  seq.,  both  extremely  pretty,  though  they  may  not 
add  to  our  knowledge  of  the  birds.  In  the  latter  is  an 
allusion  to  the  singing  swan.    Cf.  Crashaw's  Music's  Duel. 

§  12.  See  Page  62. 

One  year  the  hedge-bank  in  the  Bath  Road  from 
Preshute  turning  to  Upcot  was  honeycombed  by  bees. 
The  grass  plot  in  front  of  Preshute  House  and  the  grass 
bank  under  the  wall  were  both  ruined,  the  grass  being 
destroyed  by  the  burrowing.  One  walked  to  school  daily 
through  a  perpetual  swarm.  I  never  heard  of  anyone 
being  stung. 

104 


Appendix  B 

[This  is  the  wild  bee  or  sand  bee,  Andvcna  nigvocenca. 
It  is  very  like  the  honey  bee,  but  differs  from  it  in 
many  structural  points.  The  females,  which  are  all  fully 
developed,  burrow  holes  8  to  10  inches  deep.  In  the 
British  Bee  Journal  of  June  15,  191 1,  a  writer  complains 
that  thousands  of  them  have  taken  possession  of  a  large 
rockery,  burrowing  under  the  stones  and  destroying 
valuable  plants.  I  have  recently  seen  them  on  a  tennis- 
lawn.] 

§  13.  See  Page  65 

Hearing  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  organ  of 
hearing — i.e.,  to  what  air-vibrations  it  is  susceptible. 
We  can  hear  big  gnats ;  we  cannot  hear  little  ones.  We 
can  hear  a  stone  whiz  through  the  air,  but  the  noise 
which  (presumably)  our  planet  makes  in  its  movement 
[about  twenty  miles  a  second]  we  do  not  hear.  Drop  a 
stone :  you  do  not  hear  it,  nor  the  circlets  it  makes  in 
water  after  the  splash,  unless  they  break  ;  yet  the  wavelets 
must  cause  air-waves. 

[Some  people  cannot  hear  the  4  thin  shrilling '  of  a  bat 
and  it  is  said  that  dogs  can  hear  a  whistle  too  shrill  for 
the  human  ear.] 

§  14.  See  Pages  31  and  71. 

It  is  curious  that  the  queen-ant,  after  the  nuptial  flight, 
rubs  her  wings  off  against  blades  of  grass  before  she 
returns  to  the  nest  in  the  ground.  I  have  observed  this 
myself. 

Dante  has  a  pretty  simile  from  the  ant  : 

1  Cos!  per  entro  loro  schiera  bruna 
S'ammusa  l'una  con  l'altra  formica, 
Forse  a  spiar  lor  via  e  lor  fortuna  ' 

105 


Appendix  B 

1  So  through  the  midst  of  their  brown  swarm,  ants 
muzzle  each  other  ( =  touch  their  antennae)  one  with 
another,  perhaps  to  spy  out  their  way  or  their  fortune' 
(Purg.j  xxvi.  34-36). 

[Virgil  has  an  ant  simile  in  Aeneid  iv.  402-407.] 

§  15.  See  Page  75. 

Shakespeare  was,  I  suppose,  chiefly  interested  in  the 
verse.  And  what  more  exquisitely  musical  line  can  you 
find  than  — 

'  The  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold  '  ? 

He  puts  the  whole  passage  in  the  middle  of  an  utterly 
prosaic  and  very  dull  versification  of  his  prose  original. 
And  Virgil  himself,  in  the  bee  simile  of  Aeneid  i.  430 
et  seq.j  was  probably  his  original  here  in  suggestion. 

§  16.  See  Page  86. 

Lord  Avebury,  if  I  remember,  put  a  bee  in  a  glass 
cylinder  closed  at  one  end,  and  turned  the  closed  end  to 
the  light.  He  blamed  the  bee  for  not  walking  out  at  the 
back,  but  buzzing  ever  towards  the  light.  An  ingenious 
person  suggested  :  Imagine  Lord  Avebury  hanging  to  a 
rope  in  a  mine  deep  enough  to  be  dark,  with  the  bottom 
one  foot  below  him  ;  would  he  let  go  or  climb  up  ? 

[See  Lubbock,  Ants,  Bees,  and  Wasps,  chap,  x.,  p.  278 : 
'  I  put  a  bee  into  a  bell-glass  18  inches  long,  and  with 
a  mouth  6J  inches  wide,  turning  the  closed  end  to  the 
window ;  she  buzzed  about  for  an  hour,  when,  as  there 
seemed  no  chance  of  her  getting  out,  I  put  her  back  into 
the  hive.  Two  flies,  on  the  contrary,  which  I  put  in  with  her, 
got  out  at  once.''     The  italics  are  mine.] 

In  many  speculations  on  Instinct  and  Intelligence,  the 
question  is  confused  by  making  man's  faculties,  and — 

ro-6 


Appendix  B 

what  is  worse — man's  profit,  the  measure  of  animal 
intelligence.  A  donkey  is  proverbially  stupid,  because  it 
has  more  wit  than  a  horse  to  resist  the  trainer.  A  cat 
is  far  cleverer  than  a  dog  for  its  own  needs,  though  a  dog 
is  far  cleverer  to  do  what  man  wants.  Most  philosophers 
have  observed  the  total  helplessness  of  the  human  infant. 
In  fact,  intelligence  seems  to  me  relative  to  environment. 
In  my  library  I  reckon  myself  more  intelligent  than  my 
gardener,  but  put  the  two  of  us  on  a  deserted  island,  he 
would  bear  the  palm — at  all  events,  at  first.  And  what 
about  my  cook  ? 

§  17.  See  Page  go. 

1  That  do  bite  '  was  a  perpetual  phrase  of  a  gardener  of 
mine,  whether  speaking  of  a  wasp  or  of  a  nettle  sting. 
It  is  simply  a  metaphor. 


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